The Theme Of Cherishing Time In Our Town By Thornton Wilder
One of the things Thornton Wilder does intentionally is having the theme that time passes by, and that everyone should cherish life in the moment as they live it. At the beginning of act 3 page 854, the Stage Manager walks out on stage, with a change in demeanor as he says “This time nine years have gone by friends- Summer 1913. Gradual changes in Grover’s Corners. Horse's are getting rarer. Farmers coming into town in Fords”. This shows how much has changed in Grover’s Corners since Act 1 and Act 2. This shows that something change even when we don’t want them to change, but they do change and evolve into something new, and it will never be the same again.
Another quote on page 854 from the Stage Manager, he says “Everybody locks their house doors now at night. Ain’t been any burglars in town yet, but everybody’s heard about ‘em. ”. The Stage Manager says this with empathy for the Town, he says it as he remembers how the Town used to be, how he cherished the Town, and now he’s seeing how it has changed. Grover’s Corners has changed for better or for worse, and the Stage Manager looks back on the town, and notices how life has changed for better or for worse, and now he knows that once something is changed it can’t be put back the same it can only move forward. In addition this quote from the Stage Manager on page 855 states “We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars. . . everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being”. He states that we as a human being, are going through life not noticing how every single step we take, we never cherish, when we should cherish them.
The Stage Manager is sending the message that, everyone should cherish every moment in life as it passes by. A quote adding onto the quote from the Stage Manager on page 855 also states “You know as well as I do that the dead don’t stay interested in us living people for very long. Gradually, gradually, they lose hold of the earth. . . and the ambitions they had. . . and the pleasures they had. . . and the things they suffered. . . and the people they loved. ”. The point made here is that, the dead are realizing that, the living don’t realize how fragile life is, that they never cherish the little things in life, so they lose interest because they know that even if they tried they couldn’t help the living understand to cherish their life as it goes. This quote states that, no matter what it is that happens, no matter what it is a person will see or do, that they should cherish it, before that very moment, perishes before their eyes.
This last quote on page 861 Emily says “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?”. She says that, realizing and doubting all those moments in life she never cherished, and how much pain it causes her now. This last quote states that, human beings look over everything, everything except those ‘most important’ part in our lives, we never actually think to cherish because we’re only living in our future, buried in our failures, and buried in our pasts, we keep doing that to ourselves to accel, but when you accel and finally reach that goal, your life passes faster than any human can blink an eye. Time passes, and when time passes and the end has been reached, we look back at those moments we never cherished, and realize how much we really should have cherished them.
