Our Town Themes
Name _________________________________________
Analyzing Literature
Our Town has several themes – central ideas or insights into life. Three of the themes follow.
A. Life is part of an eternal and universal cycle.
B. Some aspects of life change with time whereas others remain the same.
C. We never fully appreciate life as we live it.
Consider the following lines from Our Town. Write the letter of the theme represented by each
line – a, b, or c – on the line at the left.
______ 1. “You’d be surprised, though – on the whole, things don’t change much around here.”
_______ 2. “It goes so fast we don’t get time to look at one another.”
_______ 3. “You’ve got to love life to have life, and you’ve got to have life to love life.”
_______ 4. “And there’s Si Crowell delivering the papers like his brother before him.”
_______ 5. “We all know that something is eternal.”
_______ 6. “They’re sort of shut up in little boxes, aren’t they?”
_______ 7. “I never realized how troubled and how…in the dark live persons are.”
_______ 8. “A star’s mighty good company.”
_______ 9. “This here’s the new part of the cemetery.”
_______ 10. “Do any human beings ever realize while they live it? – every, every minute?”
Now, it’s your turn…with your partner, you need to find two quotes that support each theme. So, in
the end, you will have six quotes. Write them under the appropriate heading.
Theme 1 – Life is part of an eternal and universal cycle.
Theme 2 – Some aspects of life change with time whereas others remain the same.
Theme 3 – We never fully appreciate life as we live it.