Our Town Essay - Cherish the Moment

'Cherish the Moment'

Our Town by Thorton Wilder

Thornton Wilder, the author of our town, tries to get a very powerful message across during the course of his book. He says at the end of act III, when Emily goes back to see her 12th birthday, "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it," (108) What he meant by this was, do people ever stop and notice the simple bliss of life, or do they only look to the future for the big events; And when they're gone they realize that they should have lived every moment as if it were going to be their last.

In act I, Thorton Wilder did a good job of showing how many things can happen in such little time, and we, as humans, never even notice them. Describing a day in the lives of the people of 'Grover's Corners,' Wilder depicts a normal town, with normal people, living a normal life, with no crimes or wrong doings to trouble them. These people don't see how lucky they are to be living such a lovely life, and take for granted all the precious things they do not notice. Though we, as the audience, do not see this message until act III, for we too take many things for granted in life.

A few years later in act II, the stage manager says, "This act is called Love and Marriage," for it is about George and Emily's romance and, of course, their wedding. Although the wedding of a couple is supposed to be one of their happiest moments together, Emily and George still are troubled and start to think twice about getting married even though they are obviously in love. George says, " All I want to do is to be a fella-" (78) missing his 'old' life with his baseball buddies already. Of course, it all worked out in the end and Emily and George were happily married, but they should have cherished the moment then and not have been looking to the future and worrying about what was to happen. Cherish the moment, for you will never have it again.

At the end of act III there are several spirits of deceased town's people. Emily, among them, had been given the opportunity to return to a special time in her past as an outside observer. When Emily returned to the time of her 12th birthday, she realized how she had not taken notice to her parents youth or her father and aunt going out of their way to buy her a gift; although at the time she noticed the highlights of the day, such as the actual gift not the thought behind it. The deceased Emily had taken notice of all this and felt that she had not appreciated everything that had happened to her at that very moment. Wilder made it very apparent that we "don't understand" (111) the importance of the things