Our Town, Thornton Wilder
In my tenth grade English class, we read an excerpt of the play ‘Our Town’ by Thornton Wilder, and I fell in love with storyline and characters’ relationships. Throughout the play, Wilder stresses the importance of companionship and community. Emily Webb, the leading character, falls in love with George Gibbs and throughout the play Wilder traces their loving relationship and their yearning for each other. Furthermore, during a majority of the play, characters appear on stage together, whether it is the kids walking to school together or Mrs. Gibbs and Mrs. Webb meeting to talk in the garden. One of the most interesting relationships in the play is between the audience and the Stage Manager, who narrates the chronicles of the Webb and Gibbs families in Grover’s Corners. From the beginning of Act I, this bond is created and there is a tie between the actors and the audience. Having the movements of the play embedded in the text and narrated by the Stage Manager, brings the audience into the action and allows them to experience the play as a member of Grover’s Corner.
In college, I performed Emily Webb’s monologue from Act II entitled “Goodbye World.” Her final line asks “do any human beings ever realize life while they live it—every, every minute?” People are constantly too caught up in the whirling motion of life to appreciate the importance of the “others” surrounding them.
Having the opportunity to interact with this play in various mediums only heightened my response to it. ‘Our Town’ is a play that marries my two fields of study, as a play that centralizes on the concept of human connection and communication. There’s a great quotation by Wallace Bacon, which states that the humanities and liberal arts “are concerned with the question of what makes life worth living. And that question concerns not simply oneself but others. The humanities must help us learn who we are; they must help us learn the otherness of others.”Throughout my studies of speech and theatre, “the otherness of others” has been a constant theme. Communication and theatre connect people and audiences and as a result we often learn about ourselves and one another. The title of the play even provides an example of community and union. The concept of ‘Our Town’ immediately establishes the human desire for company and camaraderie. The longing for companionship in this play highlights the importance of learning “the otherness of others.”
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Since my first reading of Pride and Prejudice in tenth grade, I’ve acquired an additional four copies of the novel—you could say I probably like the book. Lizzie and Darcy have a typical but charming love story, Mrs. Bennett is full of sass and dramatics; Jane is kind and sensitive, while Lydia is a bit of a wild child. I love these characters—they’re dynamic and full of life. But they take on a whole new meaning when you realize that Austen wrote this novel as a comedy of manners. Mrs. Bennett’s absurd antics to marry off her five daughters seem bit more interesting when you add the historical context. Five daughters and no husbands meant very little money after the death of Mr. Bennett. Mrs. Bennett’s obsession with marriage and money satirize the typical women of Victorian society. Austen pokes fun at Victorian regency society and the expectations laid out by this culture. (aside: although I was laughing, I was more than excited to participate in the “dressing up regency” section of the Jane Austen Centre in Bath, England). This witty satirizing novel led me to other similar works, such as The Importance of Being Earnest and the writings of Moliere. Most importantly, Pride and Prejudice introduced me to the world of classic novels, which soon became my favorite genre.
