Character
Stage Manager
Dr. Gibbs
Joe Crowell
Howie
Newsome
Mrs. Gibbs
Mrs. Webb
George Gibbs
Rebecca Gibbs
Wally Webb
Emily Webb
Professor
Willard
Mr. Webb
Simon Stimson
Mrs. Soames
Constable
Warren
Si Crowell
Sam Craig
Joe Stoddard
Include the most important qualities of each character.
Description (relationships, personality, physical)

Act I anthropological – of or relating to human beings and especially with their physical characteristics, origin and distribution into races, environmental and social relations, and culture belligerent – showing a readiness to fight careen – to sway from side to side
Canuck – Canadian culture – the characteristic features of a civilization including its beliefs, its artistic and material products, and its social institutions diligent – hardworking, industrious, not lazy evangelist – (often capitalized) a preacher who goes about from place to place trying to awaken religious enthusiasm heliotrope – a garden plant with purple flowers highboy – a tall chest of drawers mounted on a base with long legs indifferent – having no preference; not interested or concerned legacy – inheritance from a person after his or her death phosphates – carbonated beverages; sodas proscenium – on the part of the stage that is in front of the curtain savant – a learned person; scholar trellis – a frame of latticework used especially as a screen or a support for climbing plants unobtrusively – without drawing attention vestige – a visible sign left by something vanished or lost; a trace
Act II affront – a deliberately offensive act or utterance alacrity – promptness in response contriving - scheming crestfallen – feeling shame or humiliation: dejected cynicism – distrustfulness of human nature or motives farce – a play about ridiculous and absurd situations intended to make people laugh: a ridiculous action, display, or pretense gangling – having an awkward build meditative – given to contemplation or reflection relations – relatives by blood or marriage sacrament – a formal religious act that is sacred as a sign or symbol of spiritual reality
Act III bereaved – suffering the death of a loved one epitaph – inscription on a tomb or monument genealogist – a person who studies family pedigrees livery – the feeding, car, and stabling of horses for pay lugubriousness - sadness lumbago – usually painful muscular rheumatism involving the lumbar region sentimental – marked or governed by feeling, sensibility, or emotional idealism spiritedly – full or spirit, courage, or energy subside – to become quiet or less

(Title)
1.
What does the stage look like when the play begins? Explain this “minimalist” concept.
2.
What is the play’s setting? Include the date and place as accurately as possible.
3.
Compare and contrast the Stage Manager to the other characters in the play. What is his role?
4.
Describe Grover's Corners. What seems to be the attitude of its residents?
5.
How does the Stage Manager manipulate our sense of time? How does he introduce the past and refer to our future?
6.
When the Stage Manager says, “In our town, we like to know the facts about everybody…” what is he saying about the town? Is this bad or normal for such a small town?
7.
What is the children’s relationship to the adults? When Joe Crowell, Jr. and Dr. Gibbs talk, what is Joe’s tone as he speaks to him?
8.
Characterize Emily. What is she like?
9.
What are the roles of the mothers as they see themselves? Compare and contrast life in those days to now?
10.
Discuss what exposition is and explain who is responsible for much of it in Act I.
11.
Which characters have problems?
12.
Which two young people are the main characters? (first and last names)
13.
What is the gossip about Simon Stimson?
14.
Where is the Stage Manager going to put a copy of the play? Why?
15.
Why does the Stage Manager mention the Treaty of Versailles and the Lindbergh flight?
16.
How content are the characters with their lives? Name two characters who dream of something more?
17.
Rebecca tells George about a letter. What is unusual about it?
18.
Explain why the title of Act I appropriate.
(Title)
1.
How many years have passed since the first act?
2.
What is the title of Act II? Discuss the importance of this title.
3.
Based on the titles of the first two acts and the progression of the play, predict what the third act will be called.

4.
The Stage Manager talks about the years Mrs. Gibbs and Mrs. Web have spent raising children.
Why do you think there are italics around the phrase, “and never a nervous breakdown”?
5.
Dr. Gibbs says the “relation of father and son is the… awkwardest…” What does he mean? Do you agree?
6.
What do you think of Mrs. Gibbs’ comment that “mother and daughter’s no picnic”?
7.
Who is about “the best pitcher” in Grover’s Corner’s?
8.
Why doesn’t Mrs. Webb allow George to visit with Emily on the morning of the wedding?
9.
There is a flashback in this play. It shows how George and Emily fell in love. Why is this important?
10.
Why was Emily upset with George for a while?
11.
Where are George and Emily when they discover their love for each other? Who is Mr.
Morgan?
12.
What role does the Stage Manager play at the wedding?
13.
Describe how George feels just moments before the wedding.
14.
What does Emily say to her father just moments before the wedding?
Prediction: Will Emily and George “live happily ever after”? Refer to specific scenes in the play to explain your answer.
(Title)
1.
How much time has passed since George and Emily’s wedding in Act II?
2.
What is the main setting of Act III?
3.
What changes have occurred in Grover’s Corners? What are the Stage Manager’s thoughts on these changes?
4.
Who are the dead in this act? Who has just died? How did this person die?
5.
How is the tone of Act III different from the first two acts?
6.
What is the Stage Manager’s explanation for death and its effects?
7.
What do you think Emily means when she says, "Live people don't understand, do they?"
8.
Emily wants to relive a day. Why do Mrs. Gibbs and the others try to discourage her?
9.
When Emily chooses a day to relive, which day does she choose?
10.
Describe some of the things Emily realizes when she goes back to relive that day?
11.
Explain: “Do any humans ever realize life while they live it? – Every, every minute?”
12.
The Stage Manager says that maybe “saints and poets” realize life every minute. Why is that?
13.
What are the differing views on life and the living given to Emily by the dead?

14.
Read the Stage Manager's final speech. What does he say to take us back to our own time and lives?
15.
What is the overall tone of the play?
Find examples of each literary device in the play. allusion dialect flashback foreshadowing irony setting stereotyping superstition symbolism tone
Identify the speaker, act, and page number of each quote. Explain the significance of each.
1.
“Now there are some things we all know, but we don’t take ‘m out and look at’m very
2.
often.”
“Perfectly lovely wedding! Loveliest wedding I ever saw.”
3.
“Now you know! That’s what it was to be alive. To move about in a cloud of ignorance; to go up and down trampling on the feelings of those…of those about you. To spend and waste time as though you had a million years. To be always at the mercy of one selfcentered passion, or another.”
4.
“Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you.”
5.
“I’ll trust you ten years, George, – not a day over.”
6.
“They’re sort of shut up in little boxes, aren’t they?”
7.
“I guess new people aren’t any better than old ones.”

8.
“I can’t look at everything hard enough.”
9.
“Since the cavemen: no bridegroom should see his father-in-law on the day of the wedding.”
10.
“You’ve got to love life to have life, and you’ve got to have life to love life… It’s what they call a vicious circle.”
11.
“It said: Jane Crofut; The Crofut Farm; Grover’s Corners; Sutton County; New Hampshire;
United States of America… Continent of North America; Western Hemisphere; the Earth; the Solar System; the Universe; the Mind of God-that’s what it said on the envelope.”
12.
“Only it seems to me that once in your life before you die you ought to see a country where they don’t talk in English and don’t even want to.”
13.
“Wherever you come near the human race, there’s layers and layers of nonsense…”
14.
“That’s all human beings are! Just blind people.”
15.
“The morning star always gets wonderful bright the minute it has to go, – doesn’t it?”
Find events or lines in the play to support each theme.
1. People everywhere are much the same.
2. Do not overlook the importance of appreciating the ordinary things in life.
3.
Each person’s life is only a small part of a much larger picture.
4. We must appreciate what we have while we have it. The time we have on this earth is finite and fleeting.
5. There is something eternal about every human being; therefore, people have innate worth and dignity.
6. The ordinary things in life are important; they are things we need to live fully.
7. Life goes on, right through our tragedies and triumphs. We need to pick ourselves up and get ready to face another day, knowing it might be our last.
8. We all have something we are good at. Sometimes we are able to foster that talent and make a life out of it, but sometimes other life events, like marriage and parenthood, require us to set aside our dreams. It is up to us to make our marriages worth this sacrifice.
9. Live your dreams when you can. You may never get another chance.
10. There is something unifying in the day to day routines we all have as human beings. We are far more alike than we are different.
11. We should cherish every moment of life with the people we love. We never know when they will be taken from us.
12. Human beings don’t realize how wonderful life is while they live it.