Our Town: Act 3

by Thornton Wilder
In this Pulitzer Prize-winning play, many characters, including a Stage Manager who takes on several roles, use imaginary props and pantomime to portray life and death in the small town of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire.

Here are links to our lists for the play: Act 1, Act 2, Act 3
30 words 1575 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. lugubrious
    excessively mournful
    The dead do not turn their heads or their eyes to right or left, but they sit in a quiet without stiffness. When they speak their tone is matter-of-fact, without sentimentality and, above all, without lugubriousness.
  2. genealogy
    the study or investigation of ancestry and family history
    And genealogists come up from Boston—get paid by city people for looking up their ancestors.
  3. notion
    a vague idea in which some confidence is placed
    Over there are some Civil War veterans. Iron flags on their graves...New Hampshire boys...had a notion that the Union ought to be kept together, though they’d never seen more than fifty miles of it themselves.
  4. sorrow
    an emotion of great sadness associated with loss
    Yes, an awful lot of sorrow has sort of quieted down up here.
  5. grief
    intense sorrow caused by loss of a loved one
    People just wild with grief have brought their relatives up to this hill.
  6. eternal
    continuing forever or indefinitely
    We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars...everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings.
  7. ambition
    a cherished desire
    Gradually, gradually, they lose hold of the earth... and the ambitions they had...and the pleasures they had...and the things they suffered...and the people they loved.
  8. wean
    detach the affections of
    They get weaned away from earth—that’s the way I put it,—weaned away.
  9. exertion
    use of physical or mental energy; hard work
    At the same time, SAM CRAIG, 30, enters, wiping his forehead from the exertion.
  10. undertaker
    one whose business is the management of funerals
    There’s Joe Stoddard, our undertaker, supervising a new-made grave.
  11. supervise
    watch and direct
    I always say I hate to supervise when a young person is taken.
  12. bereaved
    a person who has suffered the death of someone they loved
    Mostly the bereaved pick a verse.
  13. epitaph
    an inscription in memory of a buried person
    SAM CRAIG. (reading Simon Stimson’s epitaph.) He was organist at church, wasn’t he?
  14. procession
    the action of a group moving ahead in regular formation
    From left to center, at the back of the stage, comes a procession.
  15. vacant
    not containing anyone or anything; unfilled or unoccupied
    After looking at the mourners for a moment, she walks slowly to the vacant chair beside MRS. GIBBS and sits down.
  16. patent
    a document granting an inventor sole rights to an invention
    Well, there’s a patent device on the drinking fountain so that it never overflows, Mother Gibbs, and it never sinks below a certain mark they have there.
  17. appeal
    request earnestly; ask for aid or protection
    EMILY. (She appeals urgently to the STAGE MANAGER.) But it’s true, isn’t it? I can go and live...back there...again.
  18. livery
    the care of horses for pay
    There’s Main Street...why, that’s Mr. Morgan’s drugstore before he changed it! ...And there’s the livery stable.
  19. confined
    not free to move about
    MRS. WEBB. (turning at stove to call upstairs) Just open your eyes, dear, that’s all. I laid it out for you special—on the dresser, there. If it were a snake it would bite you. (turns to start breakfast at stove, her moves more confined and less realistic than in previous acts)
  20. ecstatic
    feeling great rapture or delight
    EMILY, ecstatic at seeing her father, watches him as he enters, never taking her eyes off of him.
  21. pare
    strip the skin off
    She turns to pare potatoes at table near stove.
  22. characteristic
    typical or distinctive
    MRS. WEBB. (crossing to embrace and kiss her; in her characteristic matter-of-fact manner) Well, now, dear, a very happy birthday to my girl and many happy returns.
  23. anguish
    suffer great pains or distress
    She throws an anguished glance at the STAGE MANAGER.
  24. urgency
    an earnest and insistent necessity
    EMILY. (with mounting urgency) Oh, Mama, just look at me one minute as though you really saw me.
  25. placid
    calm and free from disturbance
    MRS. WEBB turns to stir oatmeal at stove, placid and smiling, not hearing.
  26. absorb
    take up mentally
    EMILY. (calmly, as she absorbs the thought) I’m ready to go back.
  27. amber
    a deep yellow color
    As she does so the lights dim, leaving only a deep blue except for amber on the Dead.
  28. ignorance
    the lack of knowledge or education
    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.
  29. existence
    the state or fact of being
    To be always at the mercy of one self-centered passion, or another. Now you know—that’s the happy existence you wanted to go back to.
  30. strain
    exert much effort or energy
    Only this one is straining away, straining away all the time to make something of itself. The strain’s so bad that every sixteen hours everybody lies down and gets a rest.
Created on Tue Aug 27 20:39:46 EDT 2013 (updated Fri Jun 16 12:12:25 EDT 2023)

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