Our Town

“Nobody very remarkable ever come out of it, s’far as we know.”

Grover’s Corners is an ordinary town like any other. It represents the classic early 1900s American town. Within the town, the same families have continued living, raising children, getting married, and dying. Nobody extraordinary has ever been born in Grover’s Corners, although some like Joe and George may be exceptions. The characters are simple, ordinary, and without unnecessary frills.

“But the war broke out and he died in France. All that education for nothing.”

Joe Crowell was the smartest boy in town, and even though he had the potential to become an engineer, he died fighting in World War I and was buried in the Grover’s Corners cemetery. This quote illustrates the likelihood of dying young during the early 1900s and how life often turns out the opposite of what people expect. It foreshadows the untimely death of Emily, Wally, and Mrs Gibbs later on in Act III.

“In our town we like to know the facts about everybody.”

This is one of the few times the Stage Manager uses the play’s title in his dialogue. The phrase “our town” is simple, much like the town itself, but it means more than it immediately implies. The town of Grover’s Corners is their town, a place that has been the cornerstone of many families for hundreds of years. At the same time, the phrase refers to the idea of a town—the images and memories that every American holds about small-town life and the simple pleasures found there. Small towns are communal, where everyone knows about everything and everybody, and people look out for one another.

“As for me, I’d rather have my children healthy than bright.”

Mrs Webb is a stern woman who is cynical about the world. She has seen many years of trouble, and it shows on her face and how she speaks to her family. Although she loves and cares for them dearly, she is often harsh with them, yelling and scolding her children. When the Webb family household dynamic is introduced, Emily and Wally sit at the breakfast table. Emily brags about how bright she is, and Wally studies for an exam on Canada. Mrs Webb insists that they stop talking and reading and eat their breakfast, asserting that health is more important than intelligence.

“I guess we’re all hunting like everybody else for a way the diligent and sensible can rise to the top and the lazy and quarrelsome can sink to the bottom. But it ain’t easy to find.”

In the early 1900s, industrialization was coming into full force, and more and more towns were adapting to electricity, cars, and running water. During this time, the gap between the rich and the poor began to widen in America. People built factories or banks and became rich, while others like milkmen and farmers had a modest lifestyle. When Mr Webb answers questions from the audience, one man asks belligerently if anyone in Grover’s Corners cares about the social injustice caused by this widening divide, and Mr Webb answers that it’s almost all anyone discussed. Like everywhere else in America, the people in Grover’s Corners were struggling to make more of their lives.

“We like the sun comin’ up over the mountain in the morning, and we all notice a good deal about the birds.”

The people of Grover’s Corners are ordinary and straightforward. They do not have a significant cultural influence or involvement in the arts outside of singing in the church choir, but they have a strong appreciation for natural beauty. Natural beauty is used throughout the play to convey mood, setting, and character traits and to foreshadow future events. The play begins as the Stage Manager talks about the sun coming up and ends as he talks about the sun going down. There is a repetition and reliability to life in Grover’s Corners and among humans in general.

“This is the way we were: in our growing up and in our marrying and in our living and in our dying.”

The Stage Manager explains that a new bank is being built and will include a time capsule in the wall to be opened in 1,000 years. He remarks that historical items such as the Gettysburg Address or the Constitution do nothing to portray the real, everyday lives of people who lived at that time. He vows to put a copy of Our Town inside the time capsule to ensure that people will always know “the way we were.” The entire play exhibits this idea, involving a series of mundane and commonplace events that shed light on American life in the early 1900s.

“Music comes into the world to give pleasure.”

Simon Stimson is holding choir practice at the church on the night of Act I. The women are not singing according to his liking, which seems impossible to do, and he barks at them that the purpose of music is to give pleasure. He hears their singing, and because he is drunk, it sounds shrill to him, and he assumes everyone else feels the same way. He berates the women for sounding terrible when they really do not. Music is found throughout the play through the hymn “Blessed Be the Ties that Bind”; words from this are later be found on Simon’s tombstone after he dies.

“My, isn’t the moonlight terrible? And choir practice going on.—I think if you hold your breath you can hear the train all the way to Contoocook. Hear it?”

When the town disperses from work and choir practice, everyone marvels at the brightness of the moon. Emily is sitting at her window talking to George, and she remarks on its beauty and vibrance, noting that it is impossible to ignore. The moon connects the people of the town to each other and the rest of the world at this moment. Emily alludes to this fact when she says she can hear the train in the next town.

“And the smell of Mrs Gibbs’ heliotrope. Can you smell it?”

The simple, mundane details of Grover’s Corners and the scenes that play out are intentional and meaningful. The townspeople have a deep appreciation for natural beauty, and because they live relatively slow lives, they have time to stop and smell the flowers or stare at the moonlight. These small details make up the events and dialogue throughout the play. Here, Emily remarks to her father about the beautiful smell of Mrs Gibbs’s flowers.

“Some babies that weren’t even born before have begun talking regular sentences already; and a number of people who thought they were right young and spry have noticed that they can’t bound up a flight of stairs like they used to, without their heart fluttering a little. All that can happen in a thousand days.”

The Stage Manager introduces Act II by explaining that things have changed for many people in Grover’s Corners despite the overall sameness that pervades their town. This alludes to the cyclical nature of birth, life, love, and death portrayed in the play’s three acts. Although only three years have gone by, everything can change in that time for an individual.

“People are meant to go through life two by two.”

Mr and Mrs Gibbs discuss their son’s future the morning of the wedding. Doc Gibbs is worried that his son is too immature and will fail in his new life as a farmer and husband. He also worries about George’s decision to refrain from agricultural college. Mrs Gibbs, although worried and sad to see her son go, reassures herself and her husband by remembering that George will be better off with a companion rather than alone and that Emily is a perfectly fine partner. She refers to the sacred pairing of man and woman that marriage represents and believes it is time for her son to take part in that tradition.

“So I took the opposite of my father’s advice and I’ve been happy ever since. And let that be a lesson to you, George, never to ask advice on personal matters.”

Mr Webb has a serious talk with George on the morning of his wedding. George comes over to see Emily, but the Webbs insist that he abide by the superstition of waiting to see the bride until the wedding. Emily agrees and refuses to see him, so George talks with Mr Webb instead. He begins asking Mr Webb for marriage advice. Mr Webb gives a long talk about his father’s terrible advice about marriage and warns George that asking for advice is a bad idea. Every relationship is unique, and giving advice about another makes little sense to Mr Webb.

“There are a lot of things to be said about a wedding; there are a lot of thoughts that go on during a wedding.”

The Stage Manager explains the nature of weddings in a vague and somewhat mysterious manner. He suggests that people have all different types of emotions and thoughts before and during a wedding, and then the audience is shown several asides featuring the inner thoughts of Mrs Webb, Emily, and George. Both Emily and George have a moment of panic and want to turn back, but their parents assure them they are making the right decision. Weddings are a complicated time involving, on one hand, the loss of childhood and the family once known and, on the other hand, the sense of possibility and purpose.

“Mrs Gibbs, mastering her emotion, fixes his tie and whispers to him.”

Mrs Gibbs is a strong woman. She has held up through raising two children and doing most of the housework and cooking without ever complaining about it. When George gets married, she remembers all the sacrifices she has made for him as a mother and decides to make one more. He panics and wants to return to the safety of his mother, but she refrains from giving in and insists that he is ready and making the right choice. It is difficult for her to do because she will miss her son, but it is precisely the type of thing that Mrs Gibbs would do.

“I always say: happiness, that’s the great thing! The important thing is to be happy.”

Whenever Mrs Soames appears in the play, she has a smile on her face. She is always marveling at the simple beauties around her, such as the moon, music, or the quaint and common wedding of George and Emily. She firmly believes that people are meant to experience pleasure and feel happy, and she is delighted to see two young people who are happy, in love, and getting married. Mrs Soames appears to be the only person in the town who is fully aware of the importance of appreciating things, and she remarks on the lovely wedding even in death in Act III. This serves as the final line of Act II.

“Wherever you come near the human race, there’s layers and layers of nonsense...”

The Stage Manager remarks on the seemingly pointless behaviors of humans that they continually act out to fulfill desires, traditions, and expectations. He speaks about people coming to the town to check the graves and ensure they are proper descendants of the first settlers and the way young people come to the cemetery to laugh at the writings on the tombstones. He explains that there is no harm in these behaviors; instead, they are just an aspect of humans that seems to be universal.

“All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being.”

The Stage Manager philosophizes again, thinking about all of the great philosophers and religious leaders of the past who asserted the idea of the eternal nature of the human spirit. The people in Grover’s Corners are naturally grief-stricken when anyone they love dies, and Emily and the other dead look upon them with pity for their lack of understanding of death. When Emily dies, she realizes that there is no need to mourn the dead because they are free from the troubles of earth. However, she sees that George, her father, and the other living people do not grasp this and continue to grieve their losses. The eternality of humans also refers to how people have been the same throughout history at their core. We perpetually continue to be human and eternally try to improve. The play remains relatable even today.

“And what’s left when memory’s gone, and your identity, Mrs Smith?”

The Stage Manager is addressing the audience directly, breaking the fourth wall. “Smith” is the most common American surname, which here means he is addressing everyone. He speaks about the weaning process that the dead undergo, whereby they become slowly detached from their lives, memories, and the people they cared about. He wonders himself and begs the question, what happens to a person once they have completely detached from their life on earth?

“Oh, Mother Gibbs, I never realized before how troubled and how...how in the dark living persons are. Look at him. I loved him so. From morning till night, that’s all they are—troubled.”

When Emily dies, she watches the people who attend her funeral. She sees how sad and grief-stricken they are and realizes how filled with trouble life was. These troubles, though, are often unnecessary. In this case, her father and George are distraught about her death, and she wishes she could tell them that she is okay. There is no real need for them to mourn her. People go through life in this way, worrying about things like taxes, beans, and whether they are pretty or not. At the end of it all, much of their life ends up having been wasted on these meaningless tasks and concerns.

“Oh, Mama, just look at me one minute as though you really saw me. Mama, fourteen years have gone by. I’m dead. You’re a grandmother, Mama. I married George Gibbs, Mama. Wally’s dead, too. Mama, his appendix burst on a camping trip to North Conway. We felt just terrible about it—don’t you remember? But, just for a moment now we’re all together. Mama, just for a moment we’re happy. Let’s look at one another.”

Emily has a dark and startling realization when she dies and goes to the cemetery. Against the warnings of the other dead, she requests that the Stage Manager take her back to her twelfth birthday to relive a day in her life. While she is there, she sees her mother toiling away and wasting the precious minutes of her life. She pleads with her to stop for a moment so they can look at one another and appreciate each other’s existence and company. Her mother ignores this and continues making the cake. Emily tries to tell her mother all of the things that her future holds, but this is only a memory, and her mother does not comprehend or even respond to it.

“Good-by, Good-by, world. Good-by Grover’s Corners…Mama and Papa. Good-by to clocks ticking…and mama’s sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths…and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you.”

Emily utters this line—one of the most iconic in American drama—when she realizes that people, while they are alive, do not realize how precious life is in the little things, the fleeting moments. She is pained to know that she wasted her life going through it blindly, not knowing how short it would be. She sees her living loved ones doing the same and wishes she could alert them to what she has learned. This is impossible, though, because it seems to be ingrained in humans to be this way. The Stage Manager even remarks how perhaps only the saints and poets understand how precious life truly is.

“To spend and waste time as though you had a million years. To be always at the mercy of one self-centered passion, or another. Now you know—that’s the happy existence you wanted to go back to. Ignorance and blindness.”

Simon Stimson hung himself a couple of years before Emily’s death and sits in the graveyard with the others. He maintains the cynicism and depression he had in life, even appearing drunk as he sits at his grave. He hangs onto his memories of life, unable to let go of the pain he suffered and the knowledge that he wasted his life miserable and drunk. He sees human beings as foolish and believes that everyone takes life for granted. Simon shares the same sentiment as Emily and the Stage Manager but portrays it in a much darker tone.