The Value of Life in Thornton Wilder's Play Our Town

Abstract

    Our Town is Thornton Wilder's most renowned and most frequently performed play. The play won the Pulitzer Prize in 1938 and became an American classic.    It is a drama about life in a small town in America, that Wilder intends to make it represent all towns in the world. The play begins with human birth and ends with death. Wilder allows one of the dead characters to return from death to tell the audience about her experience. Wilder chooses to tell the story of ordinary people, living in an ordinary place, when nothing extraordinary happens. He wants to demonstrate the idea of the value of life through ordinary events in human life, and show these daily activities as universal ones duo to their constant renewal. Wilder selects three periods of human life to present in three Acts; "Daily Life", "Love and Marriage" and "Death". This paper presents Wilder's point of view concerning the theme of the value of life through these three periods of human life. The paper also shows where, and to what degree, the theme of the value of life appears in each Act. The paper also explores the author's aims and messages.