604
DWIGHT MACDONALD
ideas--Freudian, Marxist, theological-and each is presented
as
a repulsive bigot. In the 'thirties, Mr. MacLeish would have
given the Marxist better lines, but that was in another age and
besides the wench is dead. Mr. Wilder does it more suavely:
Belligerent man at back of auditorium:
Is
there no one
in
town aware of social injustice and industrial inequality?
Mr. Webb (editor of the Grouer's Corners Sentinel):
Oh
yes,
everybody is-somethin' terrible. Seems like they spend most of
their time talking about who's rich and who's poor.
Belligerent man:
Then why don't they do something about it?
Mr. Webb:
Well, I dunno. I guess we're all hunting like
everybody else for a way the diligent and sensible can rise to
the
top and the lazy and quarrelsome can sink to the bottom. But it
ain't easy to find. . . . Are there any other questions?
Lady in a box:
Oh, Mr. Webb? Mr. Webb, is there any
culture or love of beauty in Grover's Corners?
Mr. Webb:
Well, ma'am, there ain't much-not in the sense
you mean. . . . But maybe this
is
the place to tell you that we've
got a lot of pleasures of a kind here: we like the sun comin' up
over the mountain in the morning, and we all notice a good
deal
about the birds. [etc.] But those other things, you're right ma'am,
there ain't much.
Robinson Crusoe
and the Bible ; and Handel's
Largo,
we all know that; and Whistler's
Mother-those
are just
about
as
far
as
we go.
And this is just about as far as the play goes. Those who
question the values of Grover's Comers, New Hampshire, 1901,
are presented as grotesques while Editor Webb is presented
as
the norm. This might be justified as historical realism-al–
though small-town editors fifty years ago were often crusaden
and idealists-but of course Mr. Wilder is not interested in the
actual 1901 Grover's Comers.
"Our Town
is not offered as
a picture of life in a New Hampshire Village," he
wrote
in
the
preface to the 1957 edition, "or as a speculation about the
conditions of life after death (that element I merely took from
