Amy/Jeff/ Chris/ Myron - Character Development Seminar

[iain melville]

Ok everyone, this is it! Let's respond collectively and amass as many
pertinent ideas as we can. Come on, you can do it! Genki desuyo!

[amy keung]

Our Town — Characterization & Character Development

Interesting features

• use of the Stage Manager as a narrator/director/flexible character

• Stage Manager interacts with both characters and the audience

• there are characters within the audience who raise questions about
Grover’s Corners


Major characters

• Stage Manager

• figure of authority in the play and manipulates time sequence

• theme: the little control that one has over their lives


• Emily Webb

• goes through rites of passage and loses innocence gradually
throughout the play

• theme: ordinary life and normalcy should not be taken for granted


• George Gibbs

• contrasts Emily’s role, as he does not realize how precious life is

• theme: the blindness of humans to their surroundings


Connections

• Stage Manager

• creates a link between the audience and people of Grover’s Corners

• engages the audience into the play; the plot becomes more realistic

• events that occur in the play mirror real life


• Emily Webb

• does not appear as dominant character in Act I

• however as the play progresses, her role develops

• emphasizes significance of seemingly trivial things



Phrases/collocations

• through the character development of [character], Wilder presents to
the audience the theme of [theme]

• Wilder presents [character] as a [description]

• [character]’s [event occurred] symbolizes [idea]

• Wilder creates a suspension of disbelief as he presents [character]
as [description], so that the audience will understand [change in
character]

• Wilder reveals [character]’s internal conflict when...


Key quotes

• Emily asks the stage manager at the end of Act III “Do any human
beings ever realize life while they live it? — every, every minute?”

• People are meant to go through life two by two. ’Tain’t natural to
be lonesome. Act II, Emily shares her thought with George about
companionship.

• “Hm....”Eleven o’clock in Grover’s Corners. - You get a good rest,
too. Good night. Act III


Effects on the audience

•The inclusion of Stage manager has a great impact on the audience
creating interaction between em’ (Act I) and hoping to get the
audience as part of the play,

exemplifying “OUR” Town.

• Stage manager is created as an omniscient information-teller that
knows everything that happens in “our town,” and has the ability to
identify the play, playwrights, characters, and events happened, which
develops character and plot (and the audience’s knowledge and view on
the characters)

• Stage manager plays the role of the audience’s guide, whom broke the
barrier between the characters and actions in the play and the
audience.

• Emily’s epiphany has a great impact on the audience on the theme
“the transience of human life,” in which she realizes that normal
people, like most of the audiences, does not realize the importance
of, and cherish, everyday life and events.


Comparison with A Doll’s House

• both Emily and Nora are devices used to convey themes

• both characters experience irreversible changes in the final act

• Emily dies and then realizes the preciousness of time

• Nora leaves Helmer as she realizes she cannot rely on him


• male counterparts to the female protagonists convey antitheses to
the central themes

• George is self-centered and indulgent

• Helmer is a chauvinist

• the audience receives Emily and Nora differently

• Emily is a girl that the audience seems to know

• Nora is a heroine that the reader admires from a distance


Possible paper 2 question topics

• Consider the ways in which dramatists present male and female
characters differently,

and the effects achieved as a result.

• In what ways and to what extent do dramatists create emotional
connection between the

characters and the audience?

[amy keung]

In the seminar, we primarily focused on the characters named in the
outline. However, the significance of "minor" characters cannot be
discounted. For instance, the Crowell brothers' roles as the paper
boys highlight that the transience of human life does not affect the
patterns that have been established in a community: a paper boy
appears along with the milkman in the morning, regardless of the
identity of the paper boy. Wilder directs the audience's focus to the
characters we have discussed in detail, and ironically leads the
audience away from other components of the play. It is only
considering Our Town in retrospect that the audience realizes the
importance of minor characters. The audience's experience is thus a
parallel of Emily's, as she failed to notice seemingly trivial things
while living her life, and only realized her blindness in death.