Literary Analysis Our Town By Thornton Wilder - 1274 Words

Our Town: Literary Analysis Essay Storytelling is a tradition that has been part of the human race for millennia. Throughout the years, humans have told the next generation stories about what their predecessors had done before them, whether it be big events like international wars, or little events like one’s family history. The act of retelling history is often categorized as something done in order for those in the younger generations to learn from their ancestors’ mistakes. However, the author of the play Our Town, Thornton Wilder, challenges this notion. Wilder’s play is a flashback to the small town of Grover’s Corners in 1901. It tells the story of the residents in Grover’s Corners, an average small town, and narrates†¦show more content†¦This is significant, because it is in this part that Wilder begins to first retell history. The fact that Wilder chooses the history of the average suburban town of Grover’s Corners to retell is also important, because it shows Wilder deemed the history of the people in a typical town like Grover’s Corners worthy of retelling, even though nothing that usually is described as eventful happens there. In Act II, titled â€Å"Love and Marriage,† the characters Emily Gibbs and George Webb are getting married. Before the wedding, the Stage Manager pauses the play to flashback to where it all began, by saying, â€Å"I have to interrupt again here. You see, we want to know how all this began†¦ Im awfully interested in how big things like that begin (Wilder 62). In this part of the play, Wilder shows how it is important to look to the past to fully appreciate the present, and uses the Stage Manager as a vehicle for his opinion. The wedding scene would have meant less if the reader did not know that George did not go to college in order to stay with Emily, proving that context from the past makes the present experience richer than without. Furthermore, Act II is where the Stage Manager explains that the people of the Grover’s Corners of 1938 were making a time capsule, one of the physical examples of retelling history. The Stage Manager says, â€Å"Im going to have a copy of this play put in theShow MoreRelatedAn Analysis of Our Town3631 Words   |  15 Pagescount An analysis of the representation of the daily life in Our Town * Table of Contents 1 Introduction 3 2 Biographical Background 4 3 Our Town 5 3.1 General 5 3.2 Theme 5 3.3 Publication 5 4 Analysis 6 4.1 Act 1 6 4.2 Act 2 7 4.3 Act 3 8 5 Conclusion 10 6 Bibliography 12 6.1 Primary Literature 12 6.2 Secondary Literature 12 6.3 Webliography 12 Introduction Needless to say, Our Town is one of the most popular plays by Thornton Wilder andRead MoreHow Dialogue And The Stage Affects An Audience s Perception1269 Words   |  6 Pagescome to have a greater appreciation of the form, having now experienced the process myself. Plays often have multiple subplots and sub-themes that can be difficult for an undiscerning eye to pick out, but I feel that I have honed my dramaturgical analysis. I really enjoyed this semester, and I have definitely improved as a playwright. I broadened my abilities as both a reader and a writer. My dialogue has developed further, becoming more varied and rich. I have also learned how to harness my creativityRead MoreAnalysis: Dogville30953 Words   |  124 Pageslà ¦ser rapporten. Abstract In this report an analysis of the film Dogville, 2003, directed by Lars von Trier, is carried out. At its premiere and in the debate, the film instigated, it was characterised as anti-American, moral, religious and so on. The starting point, from which the project has been produced, is the thesis that Dogville is a film that has a very complex form, which makes it hard to attribute certain attitudes to it. In the analysis, this thesis is investigated, and in the discussion