Read the following summary of Thornton Wilder's play called Our Town. Then explain how the motif of pantomiming everyday actions contributes to the play's larger meaning. Use specific examples from the summary in your response. Passage
In the play Our Town, the set is extremely sparse, including only a few chairs for the actors to sit in. All of the characters' actions — such as shelling beans, delivering newspapers, or leading horses — are pantomimed and use no actual props. The play dramatizes the lives of people in a small New Hampshire town in 1901, focusing on the characters George Gibbs and Emily Webb. George and Emily meet in high school, fall in love, and marry. Nine years later, Emily dies while giving birth to her second child. In the last act of the play, Emily is allowed to go back and relive one day of her life. She chooses her 12th birthday, and she is amazed by how young her parents look, how happy her family seems, and how no one really sees how wonderful life is — even ordinary life. Eventually, Emily can't bear to keep watching and asks to be taken back to her grave, saying how human beings "don't understand" the beauty of the lives they live.