Christian Humanism And Anti-Illusion Theater In Thornton Wilder's Two Major Plays

As a modern novelist and playwright, Thornton Wilder's philosophy was fundamentally traditional. While his contemporary writers examined social corruption and the tragic isolation of tormented people, Wilder's concerns were consistently human being. But in dramaturgy Thornton Wilder was one of the most experimental and innovative. The central irony of his plays was to present an extremely traditional message with most progressive dramatic techniques. In this thesis, I will probe his philosophy and consider his theatricalities in two of his most important plays: Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth.Christian Humanism is a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles where human freedom and individuality are intrinsic parts of Christian doctrines and practice. As a Christian Humanist, Thornton Wilder probed into the wonder of life and reinforced the traditional view of life that regarded ethical values as eternal and universal. He committed to search for the existential values for the individual in the universe and tried to establish a relationship between the particular and the general. In Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, Wilder portrayed the mystical and allegorical identification of the American experience with human destiny.In playwriting, Wilder's purpose was to capture not verisimilitude but reality. To restore the festive or ritual atmosphere that the theater had always had in its greatest ages, Wilder effected an anti-illusion theater that emphasizes the artificiality of performance by breaking through the fourth wall-the imaginary divide between the actors on stage and the audience off stage. Different from the conventions of naturalistic theater, Wilder stripped off unnecessary scenery and properties, used a narrative Stage Manger, employed pantomiming and invited the audience to participate in the events on stage. In this way, Wilder succeeded in breaking the illusion that what was performed on stage was actually happening and turning the audience's attention from the particular performance on stage to the general truths behind the scenes.With the mythic depiction of a representative New England village in Our Town and the allegorical presentation of a typical American family in The Skin of Our Teeth, Thornton Wilder, a Christian humanist, transcended the American experience into the eternal and universal. With the anti-illusion theater, Wilder transformed the American theatrical landscape into a religious ceremony. In the twentieth century American drama, Wilder will be remembered as an innovator in theatricalism, while in terms of philosophical thought in his dramas, he will be classified as a traditionalist.