Our Town

The people of Our Town lead conventional and simple lives. Although they have time to stop and smell the flowers or gaze at the moonlight, they seem not to realize how precious their lives’ repetitive and insignificant moments truly are. They go about their day, repeating the same motions and rarely stopping to talk about more than the weather or the daily gossip. These moments never amount to anything beyond the usual pattern of human life, but they are meaningful, nonetheless. When Emily dies, she realizes that she and her loved ones spent life “shut up in little boxes” (96), failing to understand the triviality of the troubles they faced. There is irony in the comment because the dead, who themselves are “shut up in little boxes”—coffins—come to understand the meaning of life’s small moments and everyday rhythms.

The central character arc of the story is Emily’s, and it comes to a climax when she has this realization. Upon her death, she comes to the cemetery, confused and feeling like life was “thousands and thousands” (95) of years ago. Time means nothing anymore. Desperate to relive the memories of her life and experience those people and emotions, she implores the

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