Our TownThornton Wilder

Town

Definition: “The inhabitants of a city or town.”

OR“ A people with common interests

living in a certain area.”

Think about it

My town is…

Who is in your town?

Who are the people you interact with every day?

DIRECTIONS: In your journals, write until I call stop:

Thornton Wilder 1897 -1975

• American novelist who wrote several plays

• Known for his unique treatment of universal themes

• Believed that “TRUTH” could only be discovered in the lives of ordinary people

Our TownWritten in: 1937Genre: Realism

Realism is identified when artists/ writers attempt to capture the “real world” within their art.

Facts and Info: A three-act play modeled after several New Hampshire towns -set in 1901.

Our Generation’s Realism

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Our Generation’s Realism in Television

Wilder and RealismIn Our Town Wilder intends to “capture the universal experience of being alive.”

Donald Margulies

He does this by addressing three universal themes: Daily Life Love

Death

Wilder uses the Alienation EffectThis technique is designed to distance the audience from emotional involvement in the play through jolting reminders of the artificiality of the theatrical performance.Technique Examples include explanatory captions or illustrations

projected on a screen; actors stepping out of character to lecture, summarize, or sing songs; and stage designs that do not represent any locality but that, by exposing the lights and ropes.

To effectively do this Wilder manipulates the:

Staging Setting Stage Manager

StagingMinimal scenery• Guides audience to focus on the internal rather than external. • Allows the setting to be more universal.

Setting Perpetual Present Tense: • All past, present, and future actions take place in the “here and now.”• Time is fluid

Stage ManagerRole: Narrator and characterPurpose: The audience’s

connection between the play and reality.

The stage manager encourages the audience to reflect on what they are seeing by interrupting the plot to comment on the action.

Based on the three motifs Wilder chose [daily life, love, and death], infer why he would use the Alienation Effect to keep

us from becoming “lost” in the play.

What is his hope for his thinking audience?

Write your answer in your notebook. This should be a well-developed one

paragraph response.