Thornton Wilder's Our Town

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Thornton Wilder seamlessly knitted many well-developed themes into his play, Our Town. With precision and skill he created a work that changed the way one reminisces on the past, lives in the present, and anticipates the future. Wilder broadens one’s view of the “bigger picture” by advancing the two most important themes of the play. The themes time, change, and continuity, and marriage and family are developed throughout Our Town by broadening the idea of a grand story and by expanding the concepts of marriage and family. Time, change, and continuity is the most important theme of the play. It instills the overarching ideas Wilder hoped for his readers to obtain. In the beginning of Our Town, “. . . a dog could lay in the middle of the road and not move all day. . .” (Wilder II. 68) He reveals that cars …show more content…
He did this because these topics are very relatable. In Act II, Wilder states that “people are meant to go through life two by two.” (Miller II. 54) Throughout the entire play, Wilder developed a relationship between George and Emily. They would eventually fall in love and get married. Wilder reveals that “. . .this wedding- a plan to spend a lifetime together. . .” (Wilder II. 75) George and Emily planned on spending a lifetime together. Just a few years after marriage, Emily died during childbirth. (Miller III. 92) Emily was able to see the present as it was happening but also the past from death. (Miller III. 107) This ability filled Emily with remorse and regret. (Miller III. 108) Emily’s ability to experience life after death made her realize that she took life for granted and lived in ignorance. (Miller III. 108) She realized that she missed out on so much of life by not really seeing what was happening on a regular basis. (Miller III. 108) Wilder uses marriage and family to indicate that time is passing and one can easily miss what life

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