Our Town Allegory

“The real meaning of enlightenment is to gaze with undimmed eyes on all darkness.”- (Kazantzakis). The play Our Town, written by Thornton Wilder, takes place in the small town of Grover’s Corners. The residents of Grover’s Corners are content with their lives and do not mind the small town they are living in. Emily Webb, a girl living in Grover’s Corners does not think secondly about her life… until it is over. This play can be compared to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, where men are kept prisoner until one man is able to escape. Only after escaping the cave, does the man realize how much better the life outside is, and truly understands that his previous life was a prison. Emily's crossing from life to death is a parallel to the the

Newly dead, Emily was able to look down on Grover’s Corners from a different perspective. From her new perspective, she realized that the lives of the living were much different than the lives of the dead. The stage manager explained “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…” (Wilder, 88). Since the dead were capable of looking over Grover’s Corners, they saw what the living could not. They did not stay interested in the living because it pained them to watch how ignorant they were. After enlightenment, the dead had no reason to hold onto their old lives. While looking down on Grover’s Corners, Emily was quickly able to tell that the live residents were living in a false reality, and asked the other dead “Live people don’t understand, do they?” (Wilder, 96). What the living did not understand was how lucky they were to be alive. They took everything for granted because they had no opportunity to look at their lives from a different perspective, as the dead had. After further examination, Emily concluded that “They’re sort of shut up in little boxes, aren’t they?” (Wilder, 96). Although Emily was not referring to the people of Grover’s

Emily knew that the residents of Grover’s Corners were living in a prison, but in spite of this, she desired to revisit her old life. Mrs. Gibbs, Emily's former husband's mother, warned Emily that "It's not what you think it'd be." (Wilder, 98). Returning to Grover's Corners after seeing it from a different perspective would be troublesome for Emily, because although she had not realized it yet, she was enlightened. It was explained to Emily that "When you've been here longer you'll see that our life here is to forget all that, and think only of what's ahead, and be ready for what's ahead. When you've been here longer you'll understand." (Wilder, 99). After being exposed to life after death, Emily would not be able to readjust to her past life. She had forget her past life in order to focus on the knowledge her new life would provide, and become further enlightened. Similarly, the escaped prisoner would not be able to conform back to his way of life in the cave. If the escaped prisoner returned to the cave, "His eyes would be full of darkness." (Plato, 9). Because of his ascension, the escaped prisoner became accustomed to light, and knowledge. Returning to the cave would be like trying to adjust his eyes in the night after being in a bright room; he would never be able to see as well as he could in the light. Emily's death and the prisoner's ascension were the starting points