An Analysis of Our Town Essay

unnecessary to say, Our Town is one of the most popular campaigns by Thornton Wilder and non for nothing has it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1938. The most signifi messt purview in Our Town is the representation of the all(prenominal)day carriage. Not only does the fiddle explores Ameri thunder mug values of religion or family, it excessively addresses themes like death rate or as mentioned before, the value of the everyday life. Our Town is not offered as a picture of life in a New Hampshire closure or as a speculation astir(predicate) the conditions of life after(prenominal) death.It is an attempt to find a value above all(prenominal) monetary value for the mildest events in our effortless life. Online 1 Life is often bow outn for granted although we atomic number 18 aware of the fact that life is short and that it can end at any measure. Many nation do not take obey of their life and they do not pay attention to all those half-size things which make life importan t. Thats all human beings are erect blind people. (Wilder 1984 93). Like Emily, a character of Our Town, mentioned, people are not aware of how precious life is. Therefore the main aim of this constitution is to translate an analysis of how Thornton Wilder tries to t each(prenominal) the audience through some(prenominal) messages implied in Our Town.At beginning, the term paper will tell about Thornton Wilders life, because it is important to know about his personal life when taking his works into consideration. Wilder never stopped committal to writing, even when he worked as a professor. Here we can clearly see a connection to his works, because especially in Our Town, as mentioned before, he tries to teach the lector or audience by pointing out how precious all the small things in life are and that the people should become aware of all those things. That means that he is not only teaching students on the university, notwithstanding also the audience through his works.Sec ondly, this term paper will give some important facts about Our Town, which are necessary to understand the accent and Wilders implied messages. Then there will be an analysis on each act of the play based on the main theme, namely that its the small things in life that count. These analysis will mainly sign on the most significant aspects and parts of the play that carry Wilders implied lessons and messages. At the end of the term paper there will be a short conclusion including an own interpretation and opinion of Our Town. Biographical play downThornton Niven Wilder was natural on April 17 in 1897 in Madison, Wisconsin. He was an American novelist and playwright. He wrote several stories, for example, he was asked to write the screenplay for the film suggestion of a Doubt by Alfred Hitchcock. see Online 2 This was a major honour for Thornton Wilder, because during his lifetime, he was fascinated by Alfred Hitchcock. Thornton Wilder, amongst other things, also wrote the book The Bridge of San Luis Rey in 1927, one of his storied books, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928. see Online 3 Literature compete an important role in Thornton Wilders multi-talented family.Although his father, Amos Parker Wilder, an US diplomat and his mother, Isabella Niven, were not that practically into literature, some of Wilders siblings were famous poets or writers. You might say that Thornton Wilder were born with his literary talent. He early discovered his fascination for literature and then he began writing plays during his education at the Thacher School in California. His family move to chinaware in 1910, where his father had to work, and therefore Thornton Wilder had to attend the China Inland Mission Chefoo School at Yantai.He returned with his mother and his siblings in 1912 and graduated from Berkeley High School in 1915. He began to study law, notwithstanding he abandoned his studies only two years later. After part in the United States Coast Guard durin g World War I, he attended Oberlin College before earning his B. A. at Yale University in 1920, where he refined his writing skills as a member of the Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity, a literary society. He earned his M. A. in French from Princeton University in 1926. Online 4After his studies, he began teaching at the University of Chicago, but he never stopped writing. During this time his first novels and plays were published, for example, Our Town. This play is considered to be one of this most famous plays, and it also won the Pulitzer Prize in 1938, the year when the play was published. Thornton Wilder died on December 7, in 1975 in Hamden, Connecticut. He was an American icon, and an internationally famous playwright and novelist. To this day, his works are read, performed and appreciated by audiences worldwide. Online 5Our Town habitual Our Town is a so-called slice-of-life story, which means that the reader is able to associate to the story. He feels like he is involved in the play, because of its representation of the daily life and all those minuscular things in life which makes it interesting. Theme Our townsfolk has a carpe diem theme. Translated it means seize the day, people should concentrate themselves on the little things in life which are often unappreciated. In some way, the play wants to teach the audience to bestow consideration upon the little things in life. outletThornton Wilders idea was to tell the reader to appreciate every moment of every day, not least because life is fleeting. The play was first shown in 1938, in the big immigration year, when Europeans came to the US because of the second world war. At this time, the people were confronted with all those negative aspects of life and in some way we can assume that the play Our Town was shown at a perfect time a time, when everyone wanted to escape reality to see something totally different. Or better said, to see how life can be and thats the little things in life that counts.For Wilder it was important to teach the audience to jazz every small thing in life and not to take life for granted. It was the time of the American Renaissance and the notion of experimenting with the audience was acquire more and more important. This time was characterised by extensive experimentation and originality. We can assume that the aspect of experimenting in Our Town is shown through the stage manager. normally a narrator takes place in short stories and novels, but not in plays, but this is the case in Our Town.