Our Town

The final act jumps ahead nine years to summer 1913. Chairs are placed on the stage to represent gravestones, and Mrs Gibbs, Simon Stimson, Mrs Soames, and Wally Webb, Mr Webb’s son, sit down in them, indicating that they are now dead. The cemetery sits atop a sunny hill with a beautiful view. The dead sit motionless and speak in a “matter-of-fact” tone, “without sentimentality and, above all, without lugubriousness” (85). Also among the graves are some original settlers and Civil War veterans. The Stage Manager explains that the town remains very much the same, not including the slow replacement of horses by cars and the recent fear of burglars resulting in locked doors. The town has experienced grief at the recent deaths, but the Stage Manager has comforting words for the audience: “There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being” (88). He describes death as a process of weaning away from earth and losing one’s attachments to suffering, ambitions, pleasure, and people. This is why the dead are depicted as motionless and matter of fact: they are still moderately connected to earth but lack the emotional connection to it they once had.