Our Town - Example questions - CCEA

Use these questions to hone your knowledge of Our Town, and to practise using your notes and analysis in organised paragraphs that focus on how particular themes or ideas are shown in the play.

• How does Wilder use the character of the Stage Manager in Our Town?
• How does Wilder present families and family life in Our Town?
• How does Wilder present love and marriage in Our Town?
• What does the setting of Our Town show us about Wilder’s attitude to life in America?
• What dramatic methods does Wilder use to show his feelings about death in Our Town?

Below is a demonstration of how to use the material in this section to answer an example essay question. The answer below is not a full essay, but only an extract of a longer answer showing some of the points that could be made.

Q: How does Wilder use the character of the stage manager in Our Town?

A: Wilder’s 1938 play Our Town is a drama which focuses on ordinary, everyday life and the connections of family and community. This subject matter was partly informed by Wilder’s time studying Archaeology. Attending a dig and seeing artefacts that had been dear to families from hundreds of years ago made him realise there were threads of universal similarity in what people thought, felt and did, no matter what time period they lived in. This foundational idea for the play can be seen in the Act One reference the Stage Manager makes to ancient Babylon and how little is known of the everyday lives of its people. Wilder needed a way to show perfectly ordinary events on stage without boring or alienating the audience. So he uses the Stage Manager, who is certainly a character but is also arguably used as a metatheatrical device, ‘managing’ what the audience sees on stage and guiding them through the story. He is at various points like a director, a chaperone, a storyteller and even a philosopher. His unique placement and abilities in the play allow Wilder to better deliver his message about the value and significance of small moments in every individual life.

The fact he is known only as the Stage Manager gives the impression he will be ‘managing’ or overseeing the entire production. He is seen on stage before the play begins properly, watching the audience as they arrive, which immediately gives him a sense of awareness and presence that is unusual for characters in a more conventional play. He is the one who assembles the minimalist set, bringing chairs and tables onstage and arranging them to represent the Gibbs and Webb households. Furthermore, he does this in full view of the audience – it is almost as if he is ‘building’ the town itself, constructing the world in which the action will take place. After physically ‘building’ the town, he is also initially a symbolic tour guide who indicates different locations on stage – “Up here is Main Street… Here’s the grocery store…” – and explains what the town contains and where. He invites the audience to participate in this act of imagination, buying into the setting as he introduces it. Yet from the outset, he has acknowledged that he is aware that the audience is watching a play because he begins by introducing the real names of the actors appearing in it. The fact he breaks the fourth wall in this way means Wilder can use his character as a mediator between the audience and the world of the play. He is drawing attention to the fact that it is not real, and yet leads the audience through the world in a way that helps them begin to recognise the sort of place and people they will be observing.

This essay could go on to make the following points, backed up by evidence from the play and analysis/interpretation of that evidence:

• Wilder uses the Stage Manager as a kind of chorus to observe and comment on the action in the play. This gives the audience deeper insight into what is happening and allows them to see increased significance in the ‘everyday’ events they witness.
• Wilder gives the Stage Manager a wider and more powerful perspective than an individual character, giving him the status of an omniscient narrator. He can describe (or just hint at) future events – this allows the audience access to knowledge the characters do not have, and lets the audience see increased significance and poignancy in the characters’ everyday lives.
• Wilder allows the Stage Manager to control the pace and timing of the events on stage, manipulating time through flashbacks and bringing Emily back to her chosen day of life; the rearrangement of time allows events to be juxtaposed more closely, heightening their resonance for the audience.
• Wilder does not let the Stage Manager control events themselves – he merely observes and comments on them, sometimes adding his own philosophical ideas. This shows a respect and reverence for people’s everyday lives and choices, highlighting the significance of these.
• Wilder allows the Stage Manager to summon and dismiss other characters, such as those who answer questions posed by the ‘audience’. The Stage Manager’s control of these aspects helps with pacing but also gives the audience an enriched sense of the town and its people. It draws their attention to particular aspects of everyday life that may otherwise seem small or lack impact.