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					Our Town Vocabulary      Act I                            Name:                                               Period:

1. proscenium – part of the stage in front of the curtain (bridge between most of the action and the audience)

2. William Jennings Bryan – American political leader and famous orator (public speaker—ties in with recurring
mention of speeches and public speakers throughout play. Bryan had made a speech from the steps of the Town Hall in
Grover’s Corners)

3. trellis – frame of light strips of wood criss-crossing one another with open spaces in between; lattice, especially one
supporting growing vines. (The trellis in Our Town is an archway representing the back doors to the Gibbs and Webb

4. burdock, heliotrope – flowering plants with purple or pinkish leaves (recurs in description of town and in characters
who take the time to pause and appreciate the lovely scent—literally pausing in their everyday busy lives to smell the
flowers’ fragrance.)

5. separator (related to dairy) – device that separates the milk from the cream in a dairy (separator’s breaking down
makes milkman late; used to symbolize Wilder’s intent to bridge the gap, “break down” whatever separates the
characters from the audience and us from the significant parts of our lives)

6. phosphate (strawberry) soda – carbonated water flavored with fruit syrup and containing a little phosphoric acid
(George’s mom accuses him of wasting his money on strawberry phosphates when he asks for an increase in his
allowance of 25 cents a week)

7. highboy – tall chest of drawers on legs (Mrs. Gibbs has an antique highboy left to her by her grandmother—therefore
a legacy--that an antiques salesman offered to buy from her for the unheard of sum of $350.)

8. legacy – money or property left to someone by a will; bequest; something that has been handed down from an
ancestor or predecessor (Mrs. Gibbs uses this word to hint to her husband about a vacation she would like to take—if she
ever gets a legacy.)

9. Antietem – creek in Maryland where a major battle of the American Civil War was fought between Lee and
McClellan (one of the two spots Dr. Gibbs is willing to travel to in order to indulge in his hobby—honing his expertise
on the American Civil War)

10. brachycephalic – having a relatively short or broad head (term from anthropology, archaeology used in Professor
Willard’s speech—probably Wilder showing off a little)

11. diligent – hard-working, industrious (comes up in Editor Webb’s speech about the town’s natural interest in finding
a way to reward the “diligent and sensible” and let the “lazy and quarrelsome sink to the bottom”)

12. James Whistler ; his work “Mother” - American painter and etcher (lived in Europe mostly). “Mother” – first
American work credited for celebrating an ordinary person rather than a sacred or famous figure. It’s a picture in grays
and blacks of his elderly mother in a rocking chair (one of the few elements of culture that Editor Webb says everyone in
town knows about; serves to emphasize the theme of how important the ordinary, daily things in our lives are)

13. Versailles (Treaty of) – treaty between the Allies and Germany ending World War I, signed in a city in France (an
example from history of something everyone knows about; perhaps connects to other commentary about war—Joe
Crowell’s death in WWI, for example)

14. Lindbergh (his flight) - American aviator who made the first solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean in 1927. His son
was kidnapped and never found. (another common historic reference; connects to theme of appreciating what we have
while we have it-- we can’t think of Lindbergh without thinking of his son’s kidnapping)

15. unobtrusively – in a manner intended not to draw attention to oneself (stage direction for characters, usually leaving
a scene, in order to have the audience retain its focus on the central scene)
Our Town                                                    Name:
Act I Study Guide                                           Date:

Answer the following questions as completely as possible.

1. Describe some of the different functions of the Stage Manager in this play.


2. What is the name of the town where the play is set?
3. Describe three important facts about the town.

4. Briefly describe the occupations and interests of the following people:


       Dr. Frank Gibbs:
       Mrs. Julia Gibbs:

       Mr. Charles Webb:
       Mrs. Myrtle Webb:

5. What conversation shows the limited perspective some of the townspeople have about “the world”?

6. What does nostalgic mean? Is Our Town a nostalgic play? Explain your answer completely.
Our Town                                                 Name:
Act I Study Guide, p. 2

7. What does Mr. Webb mean about women voting indirectly?

8. What is Emily concerned about when she talks to her mother? What do you think caused her to be
   thinking along these lines?

9. How does the moonlight affect the following people:

       a. George:

       b. Emily:

       c. Rebecca:

       d. Mrs. Gibbs:

       e. Mrs. Soames:
Our Town                                                                 Name:
Act I Quotations                                                         Period:

Identify the speaker, explain what the quotation means and why it is important. (By the time you finish Act III, you should know
why each quotation is important since Wilder ties everything together in Act III.) Page numbers are from the small, blue book.

       p. 6       “The morning star always gets wonderful bright the minute before it has to go, doesn’t it?”

       p. 7       “Nobody very remarkable ever come out of it, s’far as we know.”

       p. 9       “Anything serious going on in the world since Wednesday?”
                   “Yessir. My schoolteacher Miss Foster,’s getting’ married to a fella over in Concord.”

       p. 10    “Joe was awful bright—graduated from high school here, head of his class. So he got a scholarship to
        Massachusetts Tech. Graduated head of his class, too. It was all wrote up in the Boston papers at the time. Goin’ to be a

       p. 15      “As for me, I’d rather have my children healthy than bright.”

                   “I’m both, Mama: you know I am. I’m the brightest girl in school for my age. I have a wonderful memory.”

       p. 19 “If I could get the doctor to take the money and go away someplace on a real trip, I’d sell it like that.-- Y’know,
        Myrtle, It’s been the dream of my life to see Paris, France.”

       p. 20   “…it seems to me that once in your life before you die you ought to see a country where they don’t talk in English
        and don’t even want to.”

       p. 23      “Women vote indirect.”
Our Town Act I Quotations, p. 2                                                        Name:

       p. 25     “…we like the sun comin’ up over the mountain in the morning, and we all notice a good deal about the birds. We
        pay a lot of attention to them. And we watch the change in the seasons…”

       p. 30   “I’m going to make speeches all my life.”

       p. 32    “…I’m going to have a copy of this play put in the cornerstone and the people a thousand years from now’ll know
        a few simple facts about us—more than the Treaty of Versailles and the Lindbergh flight.”

       p. 32   The choir is practicing the hymn “Blessed Be the Tie That Binds”

       p. 36    “There you see your mother—getting up early; cooking meals all day long; washing and ironing;-- and still she has
        to go out in the back yard and chop wood… And you eat her meals, and put on the clothes she keeps nice for you, and you
        run off and play baseball,-- like she’s some hired girl we keep around the house but that we don’t like very much.”

       p. 39   “To have the organist of a church drink and drunk year after year. You know he was drunk tonight.”

                “Now…we all know about Mr. Stimson, and we all know about the troubles he’s been through, and…the only
                thing the rest of us can do is just not to notice it.”

       p. 40   “How’ll that end, Frank?”

       p. 43   “Yes, most of the town’s settled down for the night, Simon… I guess we better do the same. Can I walk along a
        ways with you?”

       p. 43   “I don’t know how that’s goin’ to end, Mr. Webb.”

       p. 44   “Haven’t any troubles on your mind, have you, Emily?”

                “Troubles, Papa? No.

       p. 45   “He wrote Jane a letter and on the envelope the address was like this: It said: Jane Crofut; The Crofut Farm;
        Grover’s Corners; Sutton County; New Hampshire; United States of America…Continent of North America; Western
        Hemisphere; the Earth; the Solar System; the Universe; the Mind of God—that’s what it said on the envelope. … And the
        postman brought it just the same.”
Our Town                                                     Name:
Vocabulary                                                   Date:
Act II                                                       Period:

1. farce - foolish show; mockery; a ridiculous sham (Mrs. Gibbs describes weddings this way on the morning
of George’s wedding)

2. gangling - awkwardly tall and spindly; lank and loosely built (describes George’s awkward, youthful
appearance on the day he gets married)

3. meditative – deeply or seriously thoughtful (describes Mrs. Gibbs when talking over the importance of

4. barren - not producing results; fruitless: a barren effort (describes Dr. Gibbs’ unfounded fears that he and
Mrs. Gibbs wouldn’t have enough to talk about early in their marriage)

5. alacrity - eagerness, keenness; fervor, zeal (describes Mr. Webb’s response to one of George’s questions
about marriage)

6. crestfallen - dejected; dispirited; discouraged (describes George in one scene)

7. affront – an insult; to insult (describes Mr. Morgan’s reaction to George’s not having any money to pay
him for the ice cream sodas after George’s and Emily’s important talk. Mr. Morgan is only pretending to be
affronted, though)

8. musing - absorbed in thought; meditative (describes the Stage Manager’s speech to the audience just prior
to the wedding)

9. contrive - to plan with cleverness or ingenuity (The Stage Manager uses this to tell how Nature has been
working over the years “pushing and contriving.” As people get older, many things change.)

10. exasperation - frustrated annoyance (Mrs. Webb expresses this in her speech just before the wedding—
aimed at herself and “the whole world” because she couldn’t find the words to talk to Emily about the
wedding night.)

11. cynicism - An attitude of scornful or jaded negativity, especially a general distrust of the integrity or
professed motives of others (what the Stage Manager does NOT intend to show when commenting on the
ordinary course of ordinary lives at the end of Act II)
Our Town                                                    Name:
Act II Study Guide                                          Date:

Answer the following questions as completely as possible.

1. When does Act II begin?

2. What impresses the Stage Manager about Mrs. Webb and Mrs. Gibbs?

3. What do you think Dr. Gibbs means when he says that he married a total stranger? (I’ve never heard of
arranged marriages at that time period. Think about it in a different way.)

4. What does Emily say to George that makes him sure that she is interested in him? It’s not what you might

5. George and Emily both feel doubts before the wedding. How do these doubts reveal the passage from
   adolescence to adulthood? (Think about how we know that they are being realistic about their future.)

6. How do Mrs. Webb and Mrs. Gibbs feel about their children getting married?

       What do these feelings tell us about what is involved in being a parent?

       What do you think they would say is the hardest part about being a parent?

7. How do you personally feel about marriage? How does one prepare for it? How old should one be before
Our Town                                                                           Name:
Act II Quotations                                                                  Period:


       p. 46       “All that can happen in a thousand days.”

       p. 47    “Soon as they’ve passed their last examinations in solid geometry and Cicero’s orations, looks like they suddenly
        feel themselves fit to be married.”

       p. 47    “I don’t have to point out to the women in my audience that those ladies they see before them, both of those ladies
        cooked three meals a day—one of ‘em for twenty years, the other for forty – and no summer vacation. They brought up
        two children a piece, washed, cleaned the house,-- and never a nervous breakdown.

       p. 52       “There I was in the Congregational Church marryin’ a total stranger.”

       p. 53    “They’ll have a lot of troubles, I suppose, but that’s none of our business. Everybody has a right to their own

       p. 60    “You know how it is: you’re twenty-one or twenty-two and you make some decisions; then wisssh! you're
        seventy: you’ve been a lawyer for fifty years, and that white-haired lady at your side has eaten over fifty thousand meals
        with you.
        How do such things begin?”

       p. 63       “Oh…I don’t think it’s possible to be perfect…”

                    “Well, my father is, and as far as I can see your father is. There’s no reason on earth why you shouldn’t be, too.”

       p. 71  “This is a good wedding, but people are so put together that even at a good wedding there’s lots of confusion way
        down deep in people’s minds… The real hero of this scene isn’t on stage at all, and you know who that is.”

       p. 72       “Oh, I’ve got to say it: you know, there’s something downright cruel about sending our girls out into marriage this

       p. 75       “I’ve never felt so alone in my whole life…Papa! Papa!”
Our Town                                                     Name:
Act III Study Guide                                          Date:

Discuss the following as completely as possible.

1. Explain some of the changes that have taken place in Grover’s Corners at the beginning of Act III.

2. The Stage Manager says, “Whenever you come near the human race, there’s layers and layers of
nonsense.” What do you think he means by “nonsense?”

What do you think he thinks is important?

3. How do you think the Stage Manager feels about war? Give a reference from one of his speeches to
support your response.

4. What is not eternal?

   How does Our Town, the type of play it is and the type of scenery it uses, try to reveal what is eternal?

5. Why is it so painful for Emily to re-live her twelfth birthday?

   Why does she call living people “blind”?

6. How do you think Thornton Wilder wants us to live our lives every day? Support your answer with some
examples from the play.
Our Town                                                                       Name:
Act III Quotations                                                             Period:

Identify the speaker, explain what the quotation means and why it is important. Page numbers are from the small, blue book.

       p. 79    “Gradual changes in Grover’s Corners. Horses are getting rarer. Farmers coming into town in Fords.
                 Everybody locks their house doors now at night. Ain’t been any burglars in town yet, but everybody’s heard about

       p.80     “Wherever you come near the human race, there’s layers and layers of nonsense…”

       p. 80,81 “…had a notion that the Union ought to be kept together, though they’d never seen more than fifty miles of it
        went and died about it.”

       p. 81    “There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being.”

       p. 86    “Childbirth. I’d forgotten all about that. My, wasn’t life awful—and wonderful.”

       p. 89    “Don’t you remember, Mother Gibbs—the legacy you left us? Why, it was over three hundred and fifty dollars.”

       p. 89    “Live people don’t understand, do they?”

       p. 89    “They’re sort of shut up in little boxes, aren’t they?”

       p. 92   “No!—At least choose an unimportant day. Choose the least important day in your life. It will be important
Our Town Act III Quotations, p. 2                                               Name:

       p. 95    “I didn’t know Mama was ever that young.”

       p. 97    “Yes—can’t think of anything that’s happened, special.”

       p. 97    “I can’t look at everything hard enough.”

       p. 98    “I want you to grow up and be a good strong girl.”

        going on and we never noticed.”

       p. 100 “Good-by, Good-by, world. Good-by, Grover’s Corners…Mama and Papa. Good-by to clocks ticking…and
        earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you.”


       p. 100   “The saints and poets, maybe—they do some.”

       p. 101 “That’s what it was to be alive. To move about in a cloud of ignorance…To spend and waste time as though you
        had a million years. To be always at the mercy of one self-centered passion, or another… --that’s the happy existence you
        wanted to go back to. Ignorance and blindness.”

       p. 103   “You get a good rest, too.”

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