Thornton Wilder's Idea Of Pessimism In Our Town

Thornton Wilder epitomizes pessimism in "Our Town" through the everyday actions of the characters, the trivialness of life, and the attitudes of the dead toward their once loved world. People are spent through their meaningless everyday tasks, characters are shown to be worthless in comparison to the universe, and the attitudes of the dead about life are dull. These effects add up to illustrate Wilder's idea of pessimism.

One way Wilder shows pessimism in "Our Town" is by the everyday actions of the characters. One can always predict what is going to happen to the characters because they do the same thing everyday. The stage manager knows when and where any of the residents are going to do something. "The only lights on in the town are in a cottage by the tracks where a Polish mother's just had twins" (Wilder 756). Everyday the children eat breakfast and go to school. They simply let life pass them by smoothly and predictably. The dreary,
Simon Stimson criticizes the people on earth, saying, "They and their nonsense and their idiotic glee at being alive" (Wilder 793). Later, Emily goes on to say, "I never realized how troubled and how . . . how in the dark live persons are. From morning till night that's all they are "Y troubled" (Wilder 795). After death, the people of Grover's Corners no longer care about life on earth. They seem dulled by the fact that people on earth just do not seem to care about life and do not live life to its fullest. Once Emily decides to relive her most joyous day in life, her twelfth birthday, she finally realizes how ignorant and blind humans really are. The just seem to focus on the unimportant things in life instead of focusing on friends and family. They waste their life by doing everyday things such as school, chores, and sleeping, never living life as it should be. Pessimism shows itself in the attitudes of the dead toward life on