Our Town: Does Ignorance Equal Bliss? Essay, Research Paper

Trevor Rees

10/04/00

English

Ignorance = Bliss

& # 8220 ; If something is incorrect, repair it if you can. But train yourself non to worry. Worry ne’er fixes anything & # 8221 ; & # 8211 ; Mrs. Ernest Hemingway

In the drama Our Town, the people of Grover & # 8217 ; s Corners mask their concerns and apprehensivenesss about decease in their pursuit for felicity. In the first act, a few deceases occur, and the attitude of the people towards these deceases is a negligent one of briefly admiting decease and traveling on. Besides, the kids in act two who are faced with maturity are loath to accept the load, through their hesitancy to turn up and near decease. In the 3rd act, when we eventually acquire a clear image of decease, the reader sees that the people who are dead are sorry that their mundane lives were uncomplete, non recognizing the importance of life until they are dead. This method of populating proves unfulfilling, as the dead arduously mourn their fiddling lives hankering to hold made a difference.

The phase director directs the flow of the drama throughout, and his transeunt attitude towards decease reflects Grover & # 8217 ; s Corners overall mentality on a life that tries to mentally avoid decease. This stance is established chiefly by the phase director in his first act narration, which hurriedly describes the human deaths, dissembling their importance and world.

& # 8220 ; Want to state you something about that male child Joe Crowell at that place. Joe was atrocious bright & # 8211 ; graduated from high school here, caput of his category. So he got a scholarship to Massachusetts Tech. Graduated caput of his category at that place, excessively. It was all wrote up in the Boston paper at the clip. Goin & # 8217 ; to be a great applied scientist, Joe was. But the war broke out and he died in France. & # 8221 ; ( P.9 )

This brief history demonstrates the importance placed on a adult male & # 8217 ; s decease. The people of Grover & # 8217 ; s Corners live in a universe where alteration is frowned upon ; accordingly, the agencies of covering with such a great accommodation as decease is to forestall themselves from believing of it. In the dead society of Grover & # 8217 ; s corners, decease is the ultimate obstruction, and ignorance is the redress. Another case where the phase director subtly demonstrates this pattern of hedging impressions of decease is his intercession in scenes that broach the subject.

& # 8220 ; Merely it seems to me that one time in your life before you die you ought to see a state where they don & # 8217 ; t talk in English and don & # 8217 ; t even want to. & # 8221 ;

The phase director enters briskly from the right. He tips his chapeau to the ladies ( P.21 )

The phase director once more in his incarnation of the town must step in on this treatment and he proceeds to alter the topic. This represents one time more the town & # 8217 ; s hesitancy to speak about things upsetting the day-to-day modus operandi of Grover & # 8217 ; s Corners, one of these being decease. What if the cock didn & # 8217 ; t gloat in the forenoon? Or the train for Boston ne’er came? Or person went to Paris? Death is the one thing the citizens of Grover & # 8217 ; s Corners can non trust on, and that enigma is what makes decease the ultimate barrier for them.

In their reluctance to confront maturity, the immature grownups of Grover & # 8217 ; s Corners struggle to get by with the load of maturity that alters everything. George Gibbs does non desire to turn up, because it is the following measure down the route that he does non desire to see the nut

vitamin D of. “Listen, Ma, for the last clip I ask you… All I want to make is to be a fella.” ( P.78 ) George wants to remain a adolescent, and non travel through these transmutations because of what they represent in the long tally. Even though he must travel on, George attempts to hang on to the rites that he one time enjoyed. “Now, Ma, you save Thursday darks. Emily and I are over to dinner every Thursday night…you’ll see.” ( P.78 ) Besides, Emily portions the same predicament with cleaving on to the childhood she has come to cognize and love.

& # 8220 ; Don & # 8217 ; t you remember that you used to state, & # 8211 ; all the clip you used to state & # 8211 ; all the clip: that I was your miss! There must be tonss of topographic points we can travel to. I & # 8217 ; ll work for you. I could maintain the house. & # 8221 ; ( P.79 )

Emily wants to remain a kid for the same grounds that George wants to be a chap once more ; she doesn & # 8217 ; t want to confront the worlds of life & # 8217 ; s changes. She ends up seeking to command something she can non, merely as the people of the Grover & # 8217 ; s Corners try to crush decease by disregarding it. This simple life is an unfulfilling one, and by concentrating of the equivocation of decease, life flies by the citizens of Grover & # 8217 ; s Corners.

The sorry dead of Grover & # 8217 ; s Corners express their sorrow in the concluding act and reflect on the importance of life and taking advantage of what the universe has to offer. The cemetery common people discuss the importance of non worrying, and populating life for what it & # 8217 ; s worth, without the apprehensivenesss.

& # 8220 ; Look! Father Gibbs is conveying some of my flowers to you. He looks merely similar George, doesn & # 8217 ; t he? Oh, Mother Gibbs, I ne’er realized before how troubled and how & # 8230 ; how in the dark unrecorded individuals are. Look at him. I loved him so. From forenoon boulder clay dark, that & # 8217 ; s all they are & # 8211 ; troubled. & # 8221 ; ( P.97 )

The life ne’er grasp the value of life, because they agonize excessively much over its ups and downs. Life is a roller coaster that these people invariably try to flatten out, and acquire rid of the ups and downs, such as decease. But absence makes the dead grow fond of life, wishing they had taken those chances of traveling to Paris, alternatively of accomplishing cloud nine through ignorance of the frailties of life.

& # 8220 ; Now you know! That & # 8217 ; s what it was to be alive. To travel approximately in a cloud of ignorance ; to travel up and down treading on the feelings of those & # 8230 ; of those about you. To pass and waste clip as though you had a million years. & # 8221 ; ( P.109 )

By non believing of decease, the citizens of Grover & # 8217 ; s Corners have their lives rush by them, and their felicity achieved by carelessness of decease is a brief, uneventful felicity. Now the dead recognize the importance of enjoying life because they have come to understand decease, alternatively of disregarding it.

In Grover & # 8217 ; s Corners, hedging impressions of decease begets a false sense of felicity that leads to a really everyday enjoyment of life. These unrealized people have non found felicity ; they have found flight from the apprehensivenesss of decease. Pascal & # 8217 ; s statement is a misdirecting one. People must halt to smell the roses every one time in a piece, or life can wing by them. The existent key to felicity is recognizing what short clip you have and hold oning on to it, which means taking opportunities. Happiness besides includes carry throughing something with your life, and go forthing a bequest for others. In Grover & # 8217 ; s Corners, the citizens & # 8217 ; bliss comes from ignorance, but towards the terminal of the drama the reader sees that consciousness is the existent key to happiness.