Our Town

Reading Check and Short Answer questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.

Act I

Reading Check

1. What are the names of the Webb children?

2. What does Rebecca love most?

3. What problem does Simon Stimson exhibit?

4. How did Mrs. Gibbs die?

5. What is the town’s predominant religion?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. How did Joe die, and what made his death tragic?

2. What does Mrs. Gibbs tell Mrs. Webb about in the garden?

3. What methods does George use to hint that he is interested in Emily?

4. How does the Stage Manager poke fun at the need for stage props in a play?

5. What evidence is given to demonstrate Doc Gibbs’s importance as a town figure?

Paired Resource

“Women in Nineteenth-Century America”

• This article describes the significant changes in religion, economy, and women’s roles and rights in early 1900s America.
• This connects to the theme The Importance of Love and Family in its exploration of women’s roles as homemakers during this time.
• How does Act I of Our Town depict traditional female roles in 1900s America?

“The Evolution of the American Family”

• This article, from the American Bar Association’s site, explores the origins of the nuclear family and its evolution through the 20th and 21st centuries.
• This article relates to the theme The Importance of Love and Family as it examines the nature of American families and how they have typically functioned and evolved.
• How do the two main families in Our Town resemble families of today? How do they differ?

Act II

Reading Check

1. When do young people tend to get married, according to the Stage Manager?

2. To which point in the past does the Stage Manager temporarily return?

3. What does Emily expect a man to be?

4. What are George’s career goals after graduation?

5. How does the Stage Manager say that people are meant to go through life?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Why does George break superstition, and what is the result?

2. How do George and Emily realize they love one another?

3. How does Mr. Webb help Emily and George feel comfortable getting married?

4. Which traits, actions, and/or circumstances indicate that Mrs. Gibbs and Mrs. Webb are resilient, enduring women?

5. Why does the Stage Manager take the audience back to the day that Emily and George fell in love?

Paired Resource

“The Ladies’ Home Journal April 1900”

• This image from a popular women’s magazine from 1900 depicts a bride at her wedding.
• This connects with the theme The Importance of Love and Family by examining women’s roles in the family in the 1900s.
• What feelings, thoughts, or comparisons come to mind when you view this magazine cover?

“Nineteenth-Century Middle-Class American Women: Marriage, Relationships and the Struggle for Identity in a Patriarchal Society”

• This essay examines the nature of marriage in 1900s America and how women’s roles began to shift during this time period.
• This connects with the theme The Importance of Love and Family by examining women’s historical roles in the family and the stigma surrounding women who chose not to marry.
• How does Emily’s hesitation toward marriage and her temporary feelings of dislike for George at the wedding demonstrate the inner conflict of many women during this time?

Act III

Reading Check

1. Whose mother passed away in the past few years?

2. How did Simon die?

3. Who comes to the graveyard to visit his cousin’s grave?

4. In what sort of tone do the dead speak?

5. What major technological advancement does the Stage Manager mention?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. To which day does Emily beg to return, and what happens when she does?

2. How do the dead feel about the living?

3. What are the Stage Manager’s closing sentiments?

4. Why is Emily dressed like a child when she dies?

5. What does it mean to be “at the mercy of one self-centered passion, or another”? (Act III)

Recommended Next Reads 

The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder

• This play by the same author focuses on a suburban family as they cope with natural disasters in a semi-biblical allegory.
• Shared themes include The Importance of Love and Family as well as The Cycle of Life, Love, and Death That Continues Throughout Human History and Eternity.
• Shared topics include family, life and death, and coping with life’s challenges.
• The Skin of Our Teeth on SuperSummary

The Matchmaker by Thornton Wilder

• This play by the same author tells a farcical story of how two people come to fall in love through a matchmaker.
• A shared theme is The Importance of Love and Family.
• Shared topics include romantic relationships, life at the turn of the 19th century, and humor.
• The Matchmaker on SuperSummary