In regard to Simon Stimson, we are ...

In regard to Simon Stimson, we are told that "some commonalty ain't made for small-town life" (45) as if to account for his posterior suicide. In Act II, the suppos ravishments of married life are undercut from comments like those made on Mrs. Gibbs: "Weddings are totally awful things. Farces-that's what they are!" (54) In Act III, Mr Gibbs weighs in again: "The whole world's immoral that's what's the matter" (69) Emily realizes toward the last that human beings are "just blind people" (89) Contrary to popular conception, Our Town is strikingly subversive in its sharp-eyed assessment of small-town life and human failings, of persons "terrified of change" (Bunge 360)

Like Pullman Car Hiawatha, action takes place in Grover's Corners. However, in Our Town, the midwestern town has been transposed to modern Hampshire. The author admits that the play does not proffer a "picture of life in a novel Hampshire village" (12). But the displacement allows Wilder the freedom to include greatly more American history dating back to the seventeenth hundred years Still, Our Town radiates the language and daily verses of its midwestern predecessors. Emily strings beans with her mother, and the attention to farms, horses, and agriculture generally appears midwestern, as does the innocence of courtship and parenting. Their language, moreover, is the same as in The Happy Journey (ostensibly appoint in New Jersey) and Pullman Car Hiaivatha: a strategically folksy middle-American dialect that portrays "typical" or "average" speech.