Our Town by Thornton Wilder

¶ … happiness of the Gibbs and Webbs families with the misery of Simon Stimson. Is it true that Simon is just not cut out for small town life, or is there more to it?

On the surface, Thornton Wilder's drama Our Town depicts the happiness present in small town life. Its major plot revolves around the marriage of Emily Webb and George Gibb. Emily dies and in the third act when she comes back to the town as a ghost she marvels how people do not appreciate the goodness of life while they are living. On the surface, the play appears to celebrate small town life. However, there are many indications, particularly in the life of the minor characters, that small town life has a confining, depressing aspect to it. The most obvious example of this is the choir director Simon Stimson who hangs himself. But although not all of the misery of the minor characters is as florid and obvious as that of Simon's, it is clearly and palpably present.

For example, George's mother longs to visit Paris. However, she is never able to realize her dream. While the narrative offers the possible reading that Paris was simply an illusion and she is really happiest giving her money to her children, the way in which small town life circumvents her dream and prevents her from escaping could also be seen as chilling. Tellingly, her husband says that he does not want to go to Europe, for fear that it will make him less content with his lot in the small town. Some people dimly -- or distinctly -- perceive that Grover's Corners is not the whole world, but they can do little to resist its confines and those who do are stifled. "Every two years he makes a trip to the battlefields of the Civil War and he says that's enough treat for anybody" (Wilder 20).

Similarly, young George Gibb dreams of going to college, but eventually decides to take the conventional route of remaining close to home, taking over his uncle's farm and marrying Emily. In Grover's Corners, it is very easy to fall back into the patterns of the older generation. Life has a consistency to it that can be very warm and positive, but also prevents people from realizing their fullest potential. Simon had greater ambitions beyond that of directing a small town choir. He is clearly not happy in his current position when he is alive but despite his drunkenness he puts his heart and soul into his position: "Music come into the world to give us pleasure," he urges the congregants, to make them put more effort into their singing (Wilder 34). Simon sees death as the only escape rather than actually trying to leave the town. Even after death he is bitter about the ignorance and misery that he sees in human existence.

The supposedly happy lives of the Gibbs and the Webbs show the dangers of not being able to break out of the life patterns fostered by small town life. Upon the eve of their wedding, both George and Emily express doubts about whether they are really ready to get married. Their parents quell these doubts and ultimately Emily dies in childbirth, leaving George a widower. Although Emily longs to return to a happy day on her twelfth birthday when she is a ghost, the lack of insight of the small town appalls her. Emily loved her upbringing, but the lack of reflection and deeper insight inspired by the small town suggests that in confining people to conventional roles, people are only living half-lives, not fully present in the joys of the moment. The comment that "the saints and poets, maybe -- they do some" (i.e., really appreciate life) underline how unconventional people are usually the only individuals who can gain a full perspective on the world while actually alive.

The fact that Simon is a frustrated artist parallels the notion that only people who live outside of conventional norms gain the insight that comes to Emily after death. But despite his talent, Simon lacks this perspective on his own existence, because he seems unable to break out of either the town or the role he lives within, even though he is clearly miserable. Simon longs to give voice to something like what the saints and the poets see in his music, but he is not supported in his quest by a town that can only replicate the conventions of birth, marriage, and death, year after year. The town sees him as an embarrassment, an amusement, or someone to be pitied. He is so mired in his misery that even when he is a ghost, his picture of the world is incomplete. "That's what it is to be alive. To move about in a cloud of ignorance" (Wilder 109).