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Our Town, a la Shmoop. These days, most of us take our first steps
here . . . . . . or here.
The 1% making "the big bucks" might be lucky enough to have their mail delivered here . . .
. . . while people making no bucks, unfortunately, end up sleeping here.
But not too long ago, most Americans used to hang out here.
They lived in places where everybody knew everybody else; where people were all up in
everyone's business and life moved a whoooole lot slower.
In Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize winning play, Our Town, the author lets us in on what
life was like in 1913 in small town USA. We can agree that a bunch of things have changed
in the last hundred years, but here's the million-dollar question: Are we really all
that different from the folks Mr. Wilder wrote about?
Quick Review: Grover's Corners isn't what you would call
an exciting place to live. It's one of those places where you're born, get married, grow
old and finally, well, you know . . . The Webbs and the Gibbs are neighbors, and
their kids, Emily and George, kind of like each other.
When they finally fall in love - like we all knew they would - they do what they're supposed
to do. They get married. . .
And just when you think everyone is going to end up "Happily Ever After'. . .
. . . Emily drops dead! Okay. Review's over. Let's get back to our
original question. Are we really all that different from the citizens of Our Town?
Well, some would say that even though our stuff looks different . . .
. . . people are exactly the same. Others might argue that all that cool stuff
has done more than make our lives easier -- it's changed human beings forever.
But maybe the answer is somewhere in between. Families may look a lot different than the
Webbs and the Gibbs. . . . . . and technology and the civil rights
movement have shaken up more than just a few things.
But the values America was built on . . . . . . haven't exactly disappeared.
We like to put a ring on it . . . . . . and love to root for the underdog.
We work hard . . . . . . and share what we have with our neighbors.
The real world is a lot more complicated these days...
. . . sometimes we wonder if our great-grandparents didn't have the right idea all along.
Maybe the simple life was where it's at. So, are we different from Emily and George?
Shmoop Amongst Yourselves