Wilder Works And Time Theme Essay, Research Paper
According to Hall the experience of time "varies in detail from class to
class, by occupation, and sex and age within our own culture". (Hall, 1984:
133) Thus its perception is highly subjective. While some people may experience
time as running very fast at the same time others can feel it drag. Time escapes
definitions though the passage of time can be felt in human personal experience
and observed in the environment. Strange as it as, people are aware of time at
the same time not being able to say what it really is. St. Augustine is no
exception when he once said: "What then, is time? If no one asks me, I know
what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks me, I do not know."
Time is of philosophical interest and is also the subject of mathematical and
scientific investigation. Each group sees time different; that is why it cannot
be given any simple and illuminating definition. Edward T. Hall in his The Dance
of Life took a cultural approach. For Hall: "Time is treated as a language,
as a primary organizer for all activities, a synthesizer and integrator, a way
of handling priorities and categorizing experience, (…) and a special message
system revealing how people really feel about each other and whether or not they
can get along." (Hall, 1984, 3) In fact nothing occurs except in some kind
of frame time as people feel, think, and act in the time flow. Wilder is most
famous for his experiments with time. In most of his plays time is not presented
linearly. It can have a spiral structure with many ‘loops’; it can, as well,
take many different dimensions at the same moment. Composing plays with
universal dimension, Wilder does not use object but he asks the spectators to
imagine things. He, also, resigns from decorations in favor of bare stage or
does not give his actors real props. This all aims at gaining the universal
dimension of the play, as objects are material and closed for broader meaning.
To have a cosmological dimension, he uses imaginary as the most universal and
atemporal ‘tool’ to create required illusion. Thus, in the plays, everything is
highly symbolic and underwritten with the rule: "All, Everywhere,
Always". Stage as a symbol of life and characters as representatives of
humanity cannot have real objects. In this work, it proved impossible to
concentrate only on two characters as it do not reveal all the mechanisms of
perceiving time in the presented plays. To have the full image of the problem,
it was essential to have at least a pair of each. These are: Emily Webb and
George Gibbs (Our Town) and the Antrobus family (The Skin of Our Teeth). They
are distinctive enough to prove a good example of multi-dimensional experience
of time and all mechanisms that are working in it. The Skin of Our Teeth has a
complex structure that is difficult to describe in a conventional way. That is
why it will be summarized as it appears in the text and all necessary
explanations will be provided throughout the work. The family consists of four
members: Mr. & Mrs. Antrobus, two children, Gladys and Henry and Sabina – a
maid. The first act opens with the Antrobus family’s daily duties. These are
just prosaic and trivial things. They have a meal together (with a dinosaur on
their lawn); they meet a group of guests (for example: Homer, Moses and Muses)
and they drink coffee (afraid of the incoming glacier). The next act takes place
in Atlantic City where the family celebrates their 5th wedding anniversary.
Sabina wants to seduce Mr. Antrobus and is stopped by the cataclysm – great
flood. The last act is set after a global war. The family is restored again
apart from Henry who proves to undergo a great negative change. Our Town is
structurally less complicated. The story describes lives of two resembling each
other families – the Gibbs and the Webbs. They are common people who are, also,
preoccupied with such prosaic daily duties like bringing-up children, cooking
three meals a day, doing homework, singing in church-choir or gossiping. The
play is divided into three acts, too. The first act deals with childhood and
adolescence of the two families’ children. Act two presents wedding between
George Gibbs and Emily Webb and the moment of their falling in love. The last
one describes the funeral of Emily who died during her second childbirth and her
after-life. The three acts of The Skin of Our Teeth are arranged to encompass
three, major units of time. "Act I embraces geologic time; Act II, biblical
time; and Act III, the time of recorded history". (Burbank, 1961: 104) It
is essential to notice that within a given act all three time-units are included
and only apparently mixed up creating as if embracing-all ‘presence’. The
assignment, however, is based on the leading role of them. Similarly, it can be
said that "The first act pits Man against Nature; the second, Man against
moral order; and the third, Man against himself". (Burbank, 1961: 104) The
complexity of the experiencing time by the characters is based on the fact that
the time-levels penetrate one another. The whole stream of time consists of
infinite number of smaller streams, which all embraces the Universal time, i.e.
the time of all matter in the Universe or the cosmological time. In The Skin of
Our Teeth only some of these streams are mentioned or rather presented. Others
are either hidden or consequently revealed during the action. The same is with
characters. In every moment of the play all of them live in and experience
infinite number of time-streams. All the time, they fully participate in every
little time-stream but the action requires them to reveal only the desired ones
in a proper time and place. The situation can be compared to a mathematical
sphere. Sphere like time is an absolute and a finished figure. No matter which
point of the sphere is considered, it is always in the same distance to every
other point and in the same relation with every one. The same can be said about
time in that play. The characters are simultaneously on every time-platform and
simultaneously they experience every moment that happens on every platform. The
two following situations can serve as an example. Henry is first mentioned in
the play by Sabina who, on the presented in this moment platform, sees in him
biblical Cain. "When he has a stone in his hand, has a perfect aim; he can
hit anything from a bird to an older brother". (SOT, 1957: 72) And in this
very moment, Mrs. Antrobus asks her about milking the mammoth, which sets the
action in prehistoric but not biblical time. Despite that, the two women have no
problems in communication and mutual understanding. The conversation continues
even though the two time-streams are completely different. The situation
describes two levels which are mixed up but the combination of three time-levels
is also possible. It is presented when the telegraph boy comes. He come with a
message from Mr. Antrobus to burn every book except Shakespeare’s to keep the
children warm against the cold glazier that is coming and he sings "Happy
w’dding ann’vers’ry, dear Eva". (SOT, 1957: 78) And again, it does not
distort the message which suggests that the number of presented time-levels is
not restricted. Functioning on all time-levels, the characters are able to
perceive the three messages at once although they belong to three different
time-streams. The presentation of only three is done out of literary purposes
and clarity of plot preserving the outgoing message. Each of the protagonists is
composed of, as if, three (in this example) beings in one body (in fact:
infinite number). When Mrs. Antrobus says: "Henry, put down that
stone" (SOT, 1957: 79) she in fact addresses not Henry but Cain. Because
Henry is Cain, Henry is the son of Mr. Antrobus who invented a wheel and Henry
is the son of Mr. Antrobus who works at a modern university. The ability to be
‘one in many persons’ and experience the same number of time-levers is the key
to understand the play and not get lost in the Wilder’s complexity of time. It
is important to notice that Henry (and every other character) realizes his
multi-personage. He confirms it saying: "today at school two teachers
forgot and called me by my old name. (…) you’d better write another letter to
the principal, so that he’ll tell them I’ve changed my name. Right out in the
class they called me: Cain!" (SOT, 1957: 80) This is interesting as Henry
seems to feel emotions (in this example negative) for his other ‘person’ which
cast new light on the relations within the imaginary sphere. The infinite number
of the time-levels creates the time as fluent; without the beginning or end.
This expands the action to all history of Universe this way. Moreover, the
characters do not experience the time flow. They do not get old. Only their
ideas change. But it can be argued whether being against the flow of time means
experiencing time as such. A place can be, also, perceived multi-dimensionally
by the characters as far as time is concerned. The house of the Antrobus family
is a building where Shakespeare’s books are stored, where Homer plays the
guitar, where Moses recite a poem and finally where all of them are fed with
sandwiches and sing "Jingle Bells". This puts metaphorical meaning not
only on people but also on things and buildings. They take different forms but
the idea of ‘home’ for instance is everlasting and never-ending, because
everything in the play has its universal dimension. Having won a beauty contest
in Act II, Sabina tries to seduce Mr. Antrobus. In this way, she reveals her new
dimension. Together with being only a maid so far, she appears as Lilith i.e.
"female demon of Jewish folklore. (…) the mother of Adam’s demonic
offspring following his separation from Eve or as his first wife, who left him
because of their incompatibility". (Britannica, 1992: CD-ROM) Sabina
witnesses the election of Mr. Antrobus for a president which at the same time is
Antrobus’ wedding anniversary which at the same time is the 5th thousand wedding
anniversary of the whole human race, which is followed by a quotation from
Shakespeare and the famous speech delivered by Mrs. Antrobus "I have been
viviparous, hairy and diaphragmatic (…) it has at last been decided that the
tomato is edible". (SOT, 1957: 96) Again, it is an example of experiencing
four time periods penetrating one another at the same time. Mrs. Antrobus also
gains a new dimension (primitive life forms) which consequently expands her
multi-personage to prehistoric times when the earth was dwelled by
micro-organisms. This is interesting as far as the characters do not exist only
as human beings but also as first primitive livings. The experiencing of
presented time is extended to its maximum. Being aware of living simultaneously
on all time-levels, Mrs. Antrobus has (and still does) witnessed all recorded
history. Her mind is full with all events in the history of the Universe – past,
present and future. As Burbank rightly points out, it seems to be as if
"time-present and time-past are put into the eternal present" for her.
(Burbank, 1961: 106) The situation where awareness of the future could determine
protagonists’ actions is impossible, as despite close link of all time-levels
and their mutual penetrating, each of the processes happens separately while
being a part of the whole. That is why protagonists experiencing all
time-streams at once are unable to have an influence on their own future. The
act ends with the biblical great flood and the end of the old world. Mr.
Antrobus appears as biblical Noah (still together with being the Eternal Male -
Adam) who saves his family and a pair of each kind of animals on his ark. As far
as plot is concerned, the last paragraph does not introduce many new things. The
characters rebuild their home after the war and nature destroyed it. The leading
character in this part is Henry who, being exposed to tyrannical systems,
appears as embodiment of allegorical evil. "I’m going to be free even if I
have to kill half of the world for it" (SOT, 1957: 131) However as far as
experiencing time is concerned the last lines of The Skin of Our Teeth are of
primary importance. This is where the proof for infinity and cycles of time is
best presented. The play ends exactly with the same words as it started. This
stresses the recurrence not only of the history or the world but mainly of all
human experiences and cycles of the life on the earth. This signifies that time
has neither beginning nor end. Life or time is not a straight line. It may be,
however, questioned whether circles or spirals make the already mentioned
sphere. A circle suggests history repeat all the events without any change, but
a spiral stresses people’s ability to learn something and be more experienced in
the future. Antrobus confirms it saying: "We have learnt, we are
learning." (SOT, 1957: 88) Wilder’s vision, however, is rather pessimistic.
He seems not to believe in human’s mental development. But there is some hope in
it. Human race will always manage to escape a catastrophe by the skin of its
teeth even though the Nature will always threaten us with endless fear of
annihilation. Knowing that Wilder rejects the theory of progress, Sabina’s
words: "The end of this play isn’t written yet" (SOT, 1957: 137)
indicate only that again "history will follow a similar cycle".
(Burbank, 1961: 108) The pessimistic vision does not mean Man is only a helpless
prey in the endless cycles of disasters. In fact, he cannot do much about them
but he can eliminate disasters which are directly, or indirectly, caused by Him.
Summing up the experiencing time in the play, it is clearly seen that all
characters experience time multi-dimensionally and they live on all
time-platforms simultaneously. They are aware of that and they posses subjective
emotions towards some of their ‘incarnations’. Time in the play can be compared
not to straight line but a sphere (circle) with no beginning and no end. They do
not get old throughout the ages which signifies the resistance against the time
flow. Our Town is not as much multi-dimensional as far as perception of time
goes. Grebanier says Wilder deliberately confuses time and allows various scenes
"to go backward and forward over the years". (Grebanier, 1964: 31)
Having removed them, the presented time in the play could be perceived as
linear. But multitude of ‘time-loops’ and ‘time-jumps’ proves it differently.
While analyzing experiencing time by characters in Our Town, it is best to rely
on Hall’s theories and anthropological research. In the book Dance of Life, Hall
claims every second of human’s life is subordinated to specific rhythms;
"biological clocks stay in sync with the normal rhythms and cycles of the
external environment. What happens inside is congruent with the outside world,
so that while there are two kinds of time mechanisms (…) they behave as
one". (Hall, 1984, 18) Throughout thousands of ages, people learned to
synchronize their biological clocks not only to the rising and setting of the
sun or ripening of fruits but also to routines and daily occurrences. Each of
the three days (and consequently each of the three acts), presented in the play,
begins in exactly the same way – by a trivial conversation about the weather.
Even the day of the wedding between Emily and George is no exception. "Howie
Newsome: Morning Doc. Dr. Gibbs: (…) goin’ to rain, Howie? Howie Newsome: No,
no. Fine day" (OT, 1988: 294) In this moment, it is felt to be one of the
ways of experiencing time by young protagonists. Reoccurrences of morning
conversations about the weather make them aware of the time flow. Change of
seasons is another of measuring systems and ways of experiencing time. This
seems to be the oldest one known on the Earth. "Three years have gone by.
Yes, the sun’s come up over thousands of times. Summers and winters have cracked
the mountains a little bit and the rain brought down some of the dirt. Some
babies that weren’t even born have begun talking regular sentences
already". (OT, 1988: 315) The three acts embrace the entire life of an
Everyman, virtually from the cradle to the grave and beyond it. This life (time)
is measured and experienced not by a clock but by a natural rhythm of daily and
cosmological occurrences. Act I opens with childhood of Emily and George. The
newspaper and milk delivery, cooking three meals a day, good morning’s and
good-bye’s, washing, cleaning and singing in the choir constitutes a common day.
The young protagonists experience time through the rhythm of such prosaic and
trivial events. A postman, for instance, is given another meaning: his paper in
the mailbox signifies the night is over and the next day has just started. The
characters’ time, in Act I, is presented linearly. The undisturbed sequence of
events together with no retrospections within the part proves it. Yet, what is
interesting is the duality or double-dimensionality of time. There is time of
action in Grover Corners where characters live and universal (general) time of
mankind. Universal dimension of protagonists (idea of Everyman) must take place
in universal dimension of time. Wilder expanded the universal time millions of
years back to the prehistory. "Grover’s Corners lies on the old Pleistocene
granite of the Appalachian range. I may say it’s some of the oldest land in he
world". (OT, 1988, 300) As he, himself, told it was deliberate as he wanted
to "set the village against the largest dimension of time". (Wilder,
1957: XI) The duality of time justifies lots of transitions and ‘jumps’ in time
within the play. The fragmentation of presented plot does not affect the general
significance of the play. It is realized on the universal dimension and only
exemplified by means of Emily and George’s life history. The proof can be again
Wilders’ words that the play "is not offered as a picture of life in a New
Hampshire village (…) It is an attempt to find a value above all price for the
smallest events in our daily life". (Goldstein, 1965, 106) The presentation
of only three, most important parts of the protagonists’ life does not distort
this message. Emily and George live their lives continuously anyway. All the
‘time-jumps’ together with the transmissions between particular acts (recounted
verbally by the Stage Manager later on) are one of forms of presenting the drama
on the stage which is out of interest for this work. But it is worth to realize
it serves the theatrical purposes. The third act of Our Town brings many changes
in experiencing time. Emily dies and she rejoins the dead relatives and
acquaintances. From now on, the plot unfolds dually. There are two worlds (of
the living and the dead) which are linked through the person of Emily.
Consequently there are three times: time of the living, never-ending time after
life and the generalized eternal. It can be questioned, though, if the middle
one can be called ‘time’, as the dead are able to revisit any chosen fragment of
history of mankind. This excludes the participation to any kinds of time. Coming
back to Emily, she is allowed to cross the border separating life from death and
revisits her home on the day of her twelfth birthday. This was one of most
boring moments in her life as choosing the most interesting day would be too
painful. She only ‘witnesses’ the time of her past but she does not re-live the
day or does not experience the earthly time which is proved by her invisibility:
"Oh, Mama just look at me one minute as though you really saw me" (OT,
1988, 353) Living means having body and being exposed to processes of time which
she is out of. After death, Emily, like all the dead from the local cemetery,
still has her conscious and has the inaccessible for a human knowledge of
judging everything from the perspective of eternity. "Do any human beings
realize life while they live it? – every, every minute?’ (…) I didn’t realize.
(…) Oh, earth, you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you". (OT,
1988, 354) The play ends with a new day dawning at Grover’s Corners as if
nothing serious has happened. And in fact, having in mind eternity, it is not
important. What is important, however, is the every moment of our human
existence – all the petty peculiarities of everyday life. People’s tragedies, as
big as they are, do not disrupt the eternal order of things. "There are the
stars – doing their old, old crisscross" (OT, 1988: 356) Summing up the
experiencing time in the play, it is clearly seen that the characters are three
dimensional – individual, general and eternal. The story of Emily and George is
only a supporting example of the overall message of Our Town. That is why they
are not aware of their roles and the general (universal) dimension of what they
do.