essay questions for our town

Thornton Wilder

• Literature Notes
• Structure and Technique of Our Town
• Play Summary
• Character List
• Summary and Analysis
• Act I: Part 1
• Act I: Part 2
• Act I: Part 3
• Act II: Part 1
• Act II: Part 2
• Act II: Part 3
• Act II: Part 4
• Act III: Part 1
• Act III: Part 2
• Act III: Part 3
• Character Analysis
• Emily Webb Gibbs
• George Gibbs
• Editor Charles Webb
• Doctor Frank Gibbs
• Mrs. Julia Gibbs and Mrs. Myrtle Webb
• The Stage Manager
• Thornton Wilder Biography
• Critical Essays
• Thematic Structure of Our Town
• Language and Style in Our Town
• Wilder's Philosophy
• Our Town from the Current Perspective
• Essay Questions
• Practice Projects
• Cite this Literature Note

Critical Essays Structure and Technique of Our Town

In Our Town, Thornton Wilder sets himself apart from Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, William Inge, and other playwrights of the American theater of his time by his innovations. He uses the typical three-act division as the basic structure of his play, but from this point on, he varies from tradition. He employs a structure which illuminates a theme of timelessness and which allows him to present a generalized view of small-town life in America.

He structures each act around a central idea. Act I is called "Daily Life " Interjecting himself as spokesman, the Stage Manager steps out on the stage and narrates simple facts about the town. Then, the milkman and paper boy make their rounds. The two families which are the focus of the drama get their children off to school. Later, two of the children return home from school. These short, pictorial scenes are dramatic moments intended to render a nostalgic picture of everyday activities. Between the scenes, the Stage Manager interprets for the audience. Wilder's technique is clearer in the second act where the stage manager explains what is happening in the wedding scene. In his words: "There are a lot of things to be said about a wedding; there are a lot of thoughts that go on during a wedding. . We can't get them all into one wedding, naturally, and especially not into a wedding at Grover's Corners " To increase his appeal, Wilder intimates that this is a universal wedding. He does so by choosing predictable aspects of any American wedding. In similar fashion throughout the play, Wilder presents the common and recurrent aspects of life.

The focus of the play then develops from "Daily Life" in the first act to "Love and Marriage" in the second act and "Death" in the last act. This final act shifts the setting from the streets of Grover's Corners to the cemetery on the hill outside town. Thus, Wilder presents a unified whole — human life summed up in three acts, all of which flow along in a perfectly normal pattern. Wilder reveals a bare stage featuring no scenery and few props. This minimalist technique, which he pioneered with Our Town, makes everyday objects represent larger structures: A counter becomes the drug store, and a trellis symbolizes a whole house and garden. His purpose in reducing the scope of his staging is to emphasize ordinary things and to restore importance to life's trivia. By activating the audience's imagination, he stimulates them to conjure up for themselves the larger objects and themes that he is suggesting.

This technique of saying more with less has other purposes. First, by having no definite scenery, the play transcends Grover's Corners and becomes universal. It can be reproduced on almost any stage in any country. Even in a foreign land, the audience can visualize local towns. Also, Wilder is interested in presenting a true picture of life. To do so, he breaks with realism and demands that members of the audience supply their own up-to-the-minute mental realism to flesh out sets and staging.

Previous Thematic Structure of Our Town

Next Language and Style in Our Town

The spring election is Tuesday. Here's everything you need to know before you vote in Manitowoc County.

Polls are open 7 a.m.-8 p.m. april 2. people can register to vote at polling places on election day..

MANITOWOC — Manitowoc voters are heading to the polls again Tuesday.

The biggest local race in Manitowoc County is that for the Manitowoc Public School District 's Board of Education.

Incumbents Stacey Soeldner and Kerry Trask are running against challenger Keith Shaw for two open seats on the board. Basil Buchko Jr. is also on the ballot, but he verbally withdrew from the race in a video posted on the Manitowoc County Democratic Party's YouTube page .

Residents in the cities of Manitowoc and Two Rivers will also be choosing a slew of local representatives for the cities' councils, and county voters will be choosing their representatives for the Manitowoc County Board.

Polls are open 7 a.m.-8 p.m. Tuesday.

Prep for the polls: See who is running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter Guide

Here's a look at the local contested races that will be on the April 2 ballot.

What do readers say? Read letters to the editor about the election by clicking here

Manitowoc County Board of Supervisors

• District 1: Incumbent Mickey Lillibridge is running unopposed
• District 2: Incumbent Tim Jadowski is running unopposed
• District 3: Incumbent Rita Metzger is running against challenger Morgan Sickinger
• District 4: Incumbent Jim Brey filed for non-candidacy. There are no registered candidates for District 4.
• District 5: Incumbent Tyler Martell is running unopposed
• District 6: Incumbent Paul "Biff" Hansen is running unopposed
• District 7: Incumbent Norb Vogt filed for non-candidacy. Scott Schiesl is running unopposed.
• District 8: Incumbent Paul Hacker is running against challenger Mark Linsmeier
• District 9: Incumbent Kenneth Sitkiewitz is running unopposed.
• District 10: Incumbent Donald Zimmer is running unopposed
• District 11: Incumbent Ryan Phipps is running unopposed
• District 12: Incumbent Kevin Behnke is running unopposed
• District 13: Incumbent Jonathan Neils is running unopposed
• District 14: Incumbent James Baumann filed for non-candidacy. Lawrence Bonde is running unopposed.
• District 15: Incumbent Catherine Wagner is running against challenger Dylan Hammel
• District 16: Incumbent Leo Naidl is running unopposed
• District 17: Incumbent Susie Maresh is running unopposed
• District 18: Incumbent Nicholas Muench is running unopposed
• District 19: Incumbent James Falkowski is running unopposed
• District 20: Incumbent Lee Engelbrecht is running unopposed
• District 21: Incumbent Rick Gerroll is running against challenger Matthew Phipps
• District 22: Incumbent Denise Heller is running against challenger Mike Grambow
• District 23: Incumbent Douglas Klein is running unopposed
• District 24: Incumbent Don Weiss is running unopposed
• District 25: Incumbent Bonnie Shimulunas is running against challenger Doug Wolf

Manitowoc Common Council

• District 4: Incumbent Jim Brey is running against challenger Dan Hielman
• District 5: Incumbent Darian Kaderabek filed for non-candidacy. William DeBaets is running unopposed.
• District 6: Incumbent Eric Sitkiewitz is running against challenger Collin Braunel
• District 8: Incumbent Bill Schlei is running against challenger Bradley Barnes
• District 9: Incumbent Steve Czekala is running against challenger Brett Norell

City of Manitowoc municipal judge

• Incumbent Steven Olson is running unopposed.

Two Rivers City Council

• Incumbent Jeff Dahlke is running against challengers Shannon Derby, Mark Bittner, Doug Brandt and Andrew Quackenbush for three open seats.

Manitowoc Board of Education

• Incumbents Kerry Trask and Stacey Soeldner are running against challengers Keith Shaw and Basil Buchko Jr. for  two open seats . Buchko withdrew from the race in a YouTube video two weeks ago, but his name will still appear on Manitowoc ballots.

Manitowoc County Circuit Court

• Incumbent Jerilyn Dietz is running unopposed for Branch 2.

City of Kiel and town of Schleswig multi-jurisdictional judge

• Incumbent Dean Dietrich is running unopposed.

What are the referendum questions on the ballot?

Two statewide referendum questions will be on Tuesday’s ballot. They read as follows.

QUESTION 1: "Use of private funds in election administration. Shall section 7 (1) of article III of the constitution be created to provide that private donations and grants may not be applied for, accepted, expended, or used in connection with the conduct of any primary, election, or referendum?"

Voting “yes” to the first question means private donations and grants would be banned in election administration moving into the future. A “no” vote means they will continue to be allowed.

QUESTION 2: "Election officials. Shall section 7 (2) of article III of the constitution be created to provide that only election officials designated by law may perform tasks in the conduct of primaries, elections, and referendums?"

Voting “yes” to the second question means an addition to the constitution would only allow election officials to perform tasks. Voting “no” would prevent the proposed addition to the constitution.

What is the presidential primary?

All voters will be given the chance to vote for both a Democratic and Republican presidential candidate.

The Republican candidates on the ballot are former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former United Nations Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy and former President Donald Trump.

While five candidates appear on the Republican side of the presidential race, only two Democrats are on the ballot: President Joe Biden and Minnesota congressman Dean Phillips.

Because Haley — Trump’s major Republican challenger — and Phillips both dropped out of the presidential race, Tuesday’s presidential vote likely won’t have much effect on candidacy numbers. However, voter turnout and decisions will still send signals to campaigns and parties.

Residents will vote for their final choice on who should be the next president of the United States in November.

How do I vote?

In-person voting will take place from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. April 2. All absentee ballots must be returned by 8 p.m. on election day. 

Voters must be registered and present a photo ID to vote. People can register to vote in person at their polling location, which they can find at  myvote.wi .

To register, people will need to provide proof of residence in the form of their driver's license, a bank statement, utility bill, etc.

Alisa M. Schafer is a reporter for the Herald Times Reporter in Manitowoc. She can be reached by email at [email protected] .

78 pages • 2 hours read

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Summary and Study Guide

Our Town (1938) is a three-act play written by American playwright Thornton Wilder. Wilder served in both World War I and World War II and wrote honestly about life in America. He wrote several plays but considered Our Town to be his best work. It was performed for the first time in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1938. Wilder received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Our Town , and the play is widely considered to be the quintessential American play. Countless adaptations have been staged or otherwise performed.

Our Town stands out among other plays because it is metatheatrical. It serves as Wilder’s statement on what he believed to be the disappointing direction that theater had taken. Wilder saw an increasing reliance on props and scenery that he believed obscured the raw themes and characters that theater traditionally offered. Audiences were no longer required to use their imaginations. Our Town is centered on the fictional town of Grover’s Corners, a town like any other, between 1901 and 1913. It brings to light themes of the simplicity of American life, appreciation of life while one has it, the importance of love and family , and the cyclical nature of humanity.

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Act I takes place in 1901 and is titled “Daily Life.” The entire play is set in the fictional town of Grover’s Corners, where nothing remarkable seems to happen. All of the play’s characters are presented here as the Stage Manager , who narrates the play, explains their origins, their purpose in the town, and whether or not they have since died. The audience sees the Gibbs and Webb families going about their day, sending their children off to school while the men work and the women tend the house. Each family has two children, they live next door to one another, and the mothers are best friends.

Other town characters, such as the milkman, paperboy, choir ladies, and more, are also introduced. There is a repetitive nature to life in the town and a sense that each day is relatively the same. The town is said to have been inhabited by the same families since the first settlers in the early 1600s, and the Stage Manager describes it as ordinary and unremarkable. Act I provides the exposition , setting , and characters through direct descriptions and scenes acted out by players. The townspeople go about their regular lives, have simple interactions, and conclude their day by appreciating the bright moonlight as it takes them home and into bed for the night.

Act II, titled “Love and Marriage,” sees two teenagers, George Gibbs and Emily Webb, fall in love and marry three years later. The entire act centers on their story of falling in love, their fears and anxieties about marriage, and the societal expectations that push them into it despite these fears. It starts as George wants desperately to see Emily on their wedding day, but when he visits her, he is rebuffed due to superstition and made to sit with her father instead. George asks Mr Webb for marriage advice but is given enigmatic counsel. Instead, he is left to navigate marriage blindly.

The Stage Manager then returns to when George and Emily first realized they were in love. George offers to walk Emily home from school, and the two of them get ice cream sodas together. Emily tells George that she does not appreciate his conceited attitude, and George vows to change while professing his love for her. She admits that she feels the same. The scene cuts back to the wedding day, and everyone is at the church awaiting the ceremony. George and Emily both have moments of panic when they reach the end of the aisle, but their parents quell their concerns, and they are married. Act II ends with one of the town ladies remarking on the importance of happiness in life.

Act III jumps ahead nine years to the year 1913. Several characters have died of various causes common for the period, such as Mrs Gibbs, the Webbs’ son Wally, the church choir leader, and several others. They sit at their graves atop the hill of Grover’s Corners, waiting for whatever may be coming next and slowly growing indifferent toward earthly matters and their previous lives. It is revealed that Emily Webb died giving birth to her second child, and her funeral begins. Emily wanders into the graveyard, confused and with an air of innocence. She realizes immediately where she is but begins thinking about her life and wants to revisit those memories. She begs the Stage Manager to take her back to a special day, despite warnings from the other dead, and he takes her to her twelfth birthday. There, she sees her mother toiling away needlessly instead of spending time with her family and paying attention to what matters. Emily realizes that she wasted her time while alive, just as almost all humans do. She becomes distraught and asks to be returned to the graveyard. George comes up to her tombstone and drops to his knees, sobbing. Emily stares at him indifferently, as if the experience she just had separated her from her life before. The play ends as the Stage Manager remarks that the earth, and everyone on it, works so hard to make something of themselves that they need to rest every night.

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Easter shooting at Roasted leaves Salemtown residents with more questions than answers

Roasted, the eatery and gathering space in Nashville’s Salemtown neighborhood, is just around the corner from my house.

When news came out about the shooting Easter Sunday that left one person dead and several injured, I received several text messages from friends and colleagues asking about my safety.

At the time, my spouse and I were in another part of town enjoying brunch at our friends’ house.

Start the day smarter. Get all the news you need in your inbox each morning.

When we returned to the neighborhood, we entered using an alley and alternative streets from our usual route because police vehicles and caution tape blocked the street.

We decided to walk our dogs like we normally do in the afternoon and ran into neighbors to ask them how they were doing.

We saw Mayor Freddie O’Connell ahead walking with his family addressing some fellow neighbors’ concerns.

Earlier O’Connell posted on X (formerly Twitter): “Tragically, Easter was disrupted by gun violence in my neighborhood at one of our wonderful small businesses. @MNPDNashville has the area secured, and @NashvilleFD EMS has taken care of victims. My heart goes out to those who had their holiday disrupted by gun violence.”

This type of crime is not commonplace in the neighborhood these days, but it is a reminder that any community is susceptible to horrific violence – be it a private school like Covenant the year before or a locally-owned business like Roasted that has hosted long lines of patrons for their food every weekend.

After Covenant, Tennesseans wanted to protect kids from gun violence. That didn't happen.

Homicide is unusual in this North Nashville neighborhood

The day before the shooting, several neighbors from Salemtown, Buena Vista, Hope Gardens and Germantown attended a community meeting at Metro Nashville Police Department’s North Precinct, which was organized by Council Member Jacob Kupin. At-Large Council Member Olivia Hill also attended.

MNPD Community Coordinator Sgt. James Freeman gave us community stats and answered questions about crime concerns.

At the time, the previous month’s stats showed zero homicides.

Riley Strain should've been home safe. Instead he’s another casualty of Nashville’s party scene.

Many of the concerns involved delivery package thefts, but there were also worries about random acts of violence such as a woman being punched on the street.

Moreover, stolen vehicles and truck break-ins have become a persistent problem.

This year, MNPD launched Operation 72 to go after vehicle thefts.

We were encouraged to report any crimes, keep our porch lights on at night and get to know our neighbors.

I think the biggest win was neighbors getting to hear each other and also know who to contact about a crime.

Roasted, a Black-owned business, has added to the diverse mix

Today, the Salemtown neighborhood has become more affluent. Property values have soared. There are 2,000 short-term rental units in the area, according to Sergeant Freeman.

Longtime neighbors in Salemtown have told us that gunshots and crime were commonplace 15 to 20 years before.

When we arrived to Nashville 10 years ago, gunshots were rare in this urban neighborhood that has a mix of developments: historic one-story homes, tall-and-skinny attached units, subsidized barracks housing, the Nashville Rescue Mission’s women’s shelter and the Cheatham Place public housing development across Rosa Parks Boulevard to the west.

When my family and I first moved to the area, Roasted’s building was a laundromat and convenience store that went defunct after the 2015 mayoral election and was empty for years.

Roasted used to be called The Local Distro and co-owner Will Radford, a Salemtown neighbor and former neighborhood association president, created a welcoming space for the entire community that happens to be a Black-owned business serving a primarily Black clientele.

I have been there to eat, to attend a book launch and cover a 2023 Nashville local election event.

My heart goes out to Radford, the employees, the patrons, and the victims and their families, and I hope Roasted is able to reopen soon.

There are many questions about what happened and why, and those will be answered in time.

My hope for now is that our neighbors will rally together to comfort each other, protect each other, stay connected in both happy and tragic times, and do we what we can to keep the neighborhood safe.

We are not immune to violence anywhere, but kindness toward each can be an antidote to fear in the aftermath.

David Plazas is the director of opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY Network Tennessee. He is an editorial board member of The Tennessean. He hosts the  Tennessee Voices videocast  and curates the  Tennessee Voices  and  Latino Tennessee Voices  newsletters. Call him at (615) 259-8063, email him at  [email protected]  or tweet to him at  @davidplazas .

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Easter shooting at Roasted leaves Salemtown residents with more questions than answers

by Thornton Wilder

Our town quiz 1.

• 1 In what state is Grover's Corners? Maine Rhode Island Vermont New Hampshire
• 2 Who are the Webb children? George and Wally George and Rebecca Emily and Rebecca Emily and Wally
• 3 Who are the Gibbs children? George and Rebecca Emily and Rebecca George and Wally Emily and Wally
• 4 What is Mr. Webb's profession? Professor Newspaper editor Doctor Farmer
• 5 What is Mr. Gibbs' profession? Professor Newspaper editor Farmer Doctor
• 6 What does George want to be when he grows up? Newspaper editor Doctor Professor Farmer
• 7 What is Mr. Willard's profession? Professor Choir master Constable Druggist
• 8 What is Simon Stimson's profession? Constable Choir master Druggist Professor
• 9 What is Mr. Morgan's profession? Professor Constable Druggist Choir master
• 10 What is Mr. Warren's profession? Constable Professor Druggist Choir master
• 11 What is the name of the street in downtown Grover's Corners? Main Street Grand Street Broadway Church Street
• 12 What building is named after Dr. Gibbs? The pharmacy The new hospital The medical school The new bank
• 13 How did Joe Crowell die? Killed himself Killed in WW1 Car accident Heart attack
• 14 What is the name of the milkman's horse? Mama Nellie Bessie Caroline
• 15 When the play starts, what has just happened in Grover's Corners? The new year started Twins were born Emily died Mr. Webb came home
• 16 What is on stage when the audience enters? Two ladders A few chairs A blank drop Nothing
• 17 What does George ask for at breakfast on the first day? Extra homefries To visit his uncle's farm A raise in his allowance A new bicycle
• 18 What does Emily talk about at breakfast? George Her allowance Her teacher Her good grades
• 19 What did the men from Boston offer Mrs. Gibbs? A subscription to the Globe A new dining room set A job in antiquing To buy her dresser
• 20 What is Dr. Gibbs' hobby? European currency Civil War history Fishing Stamp collecting
• 21 Where does Mrs. Gibbs want to go? New York London Paris Bejing
• 22 Why won't Dr. Gibbs take a trip? Can't take time away from his patients Too expensive Afraid of flying Might make him discontent with home
• 23 What does George ask Emily while they're walking home from school? If she would let him borrow her term paper If she would help with his homework If she would be his girl If she would come to his ball game
• 24 Which item is included in the Grover's Corners time capsule? The town register "Our Town" the Stage Manager's biography a package of Twinkies
• 25 What distracts Emily while she's doing her homework? The train whistle The moon Wally George's baseball

Our Town Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Our Town is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Match these -.-

1) "They'll have a lot of troubles, I suppose, but that's none of our business.

Everybody has a right to their own troubles." Doctor Gibbs

3) George, I was thinking the other night of some advice my father gave me when I got...

What type of behavior does the Stage Manager describe as “layers and layers of nonsense”?

stfu you stupid bean. I can tell your from mexico

What does Bessie’s reluctance to change her route reveal about the daily routine of the residents of Grover’s Corners?

It represents the lack of change in their society: the comfort they find in the familiar and the routine. These routines are part of their identity.

Study Guide for Our Town

Our Town study guide contains a biography of Thornton Wilder, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Our Town
• Our Town Summary
• Character List

Essays for Our Town

Our Town essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Our Town by Thornton Wilder.

• Hymns and Music as Markers in Time and Part of Rituals
• An Essential Foundation: The Role Setting Plays in American Theatre
• The Importance of Our Town's Narrator
• Medicine in the Early 1900's: Essential Context for Emily's Death
• A Mundane Story to a Life-Changing Experience: The Act-by-Act Insights of Our Town

Lesson Plan for Our Town

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to Our Town
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• Our Town Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for Our Town

• Introduction
• Composition

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Amna Khalid says institutions need to rethink DEI initiatives.

Photo by Dylan Goodman

Pushing back on DEI ‘orthodoxy’

Panelists support diversity efforts but worry that current model is too narrow, denying institutions the benefit of other voices, ideas

Nikki Rojas

Harvard Staff Writer

It’s time to take a harder look at the role of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in higher education.

That was the overall theme of a searing panel discussion at Smith Campus Center on Thursday. Titled “Academic Freedom, DEI, & the Future of Higher Education,” the event featured scholars specializing in law, history, politics, and diversity.

“The power of diversity for learning is irreplaceable,” said panelist Amna Khalid, associate professor of history at Carleton College in Minnesota. “It is incredible, and it is a value that I strongly believe in as someone who is the product of various educational systems.”

However, Khalid shared that she often finds herself at odds with the approach DEI practitioners take in higher education — an approach she termed “DEI Inc.”

Khalid wrote an opinion piece with Carlton colleague Jeffrey Aaron Snyder last year for the Chronicle of Higher Education. The essay, titled “ Yes, DEI Can Erode Academic Freedom. Let’s Not Pretend Otherwise ,” argues that under the logic of the prevailing DEI model, “Education is a product, students are consumers, and campus diversity is a customer-service issue that needs to be administered from the top down.”

All too often, Khalid said at the event, practitioners implement a “model underscored by a notion of harm and that students somehow need to be protected from harm.”

Jeannie Suk Gersen, John H. Watson, Jr. Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, agreed with that assessment and said that people who object to DEI do not often equate it to the idea of diversity.

“It’s, in fact, a set of ideas that have become very narrowed to one specific orthodoxy about what diversity means, what equity and inclusion mean, so that it shuts out a whole bunch of other ideas about what diversity, equity, and inclusion may be,” Suk Gersen said.

The lone voice to advocate for a professionalized and accountable DEI workforce was Stacy Hawkins, a Rutgers University law professor and scholar of DEI.

“Perhaps it’s simply just the introduction of diversity into our institutions that’s going to create discomfort — that’s going to make it harder to have the same conversations, to do the same things, to say and behave in the same ways that we used to,” said Hawkins, who underscored the challenge of welcoming diverse students without diverse faculty. “But that doesn’t mean that it’s not a worthwhile exercise to try.”

Panelists also fielded questions on academic freedom and free speech, and whether DEI infringes on those rights.

DEI is “almost always wrong in the sense that it subverts classical liberal principles of the academic mission of open inquiry, truth seeking, knowledge creation, research, and debating ideas,” responded panelist Ilya Shapiro, senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute.

He went on to quote Hanna Holborn Gray, former president of the University of Chicago, who once said: “Education should not be intended to make people comfortable; it is meant to make them think.”

Shapiro proved the only panelist to argue for the total elimination of university DEI offices without replacing them with other structures designed to achieve diversity goals. Instead, he said that student affairs, compliance officers, and admissions should assume any responsibilities related to diversity.

Last week’s discussion was sponsored by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ Civil Discourse Initiative , the Harvard College Intellectual Vitality Initiative , and the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics .

Also discussed were social media and the distorted views it surfaces on DEI.

Hawkins noted that DEI takes a real beating on the platforms, all while cancel culture is the true driver behind most modern outrage. “There is this heightened sense of awareness,” she said. “There’s this heightened sense of accountability. There is this heightened sense of threat. And this heightened sense of punitive action, all surrounding a larger cultural phenomenon that has nothing to do with diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

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Guest Essay

Tired of Sucking It Up as a Climber, I’ve Embraced a Softer Strength

By Beth Rodden

Ms. Rodden is a professional climber and the author of the forthcoming memoir, “A Light Through the Cracks.”

I don’t know what time it was when my husband at the time, the rock climber Tommy Caldwell, finally scrambled over the summit. The sun had risen sometime during the first part of the climb and had set again hours later. I squinted up at him, tired eyes burning as I watched his shadow moving in the beam of my headlight. He had just completed the second free ascent of the Direct Route on the northwest face of Half Dome, a 2,000-foot climb in Yosemite National Park.

We were elite professional climbers, and this was what we did best. Sometimes we made history together; other times I supported him in his feats, belaying and carrying all the gear. Either way, the days were long and hard.

The climber Todd Skinner spent 61 days in 1993 working to establish the Direct Route, then considered the most difficult big wall climb in the world, before reaching the top. On our climb in 2007, our 2 a.m. wake-up, more than 24 hours earlier, hadn’t even felt all that early to me. Sleeping in past midnight? That meant what I was getting up for wasn’t that rad, that hard core. Tommy made it to the top in a day, adding a move that made the climb more difficult than the one Mr. Skinner had pioneered. It felt routine.

Hanging in the middle of Half Dome was an ordinary thing. Ascending ropes with bloody knuckles and a heavy pack thousands of feet off the ground was as conventional to me as grabbing the bananas and apples in the produce section: just part of my day. Climbers pride themselves on being better than normal people. Not just in the “I climbed a mountain and you didn’t” type of way, but in the fabric of how we approach life. How we eat, where we sleep, the stories we walk away with: It’s all better.

By the time I was in my mid-20s, I was a walking archetype of how to succeed in that world because of the belief system I followed: suck it up, persevere, win. I was used to pushing the level of climbing further, used to doing things that no other women had done — and even, a couple of times, things that no guys had done.

I specialized in free climbing, a particular (and particularly challenging) discipline that requires a climber to rely on her gear only for protection from a fall, not for any assistance in moving up the rock. I had free-climbed Yosemite’s El Capitan three times, by three independent routes. Elsewhere in Yosemite, I had established a new route in 2008, Meltdown , that was widely viewed then as the hardest traditional climb in the world, not repeated until 2018. (“Traditional” meaning I depended on a rope suspended by gear I placed myself, rather than on bolts permanently installed in the rock.) For a decade, I had appeared in climbing films and on the pages of climbing magazines. Pushing through the pain, sacrificing my body, shoving my fear away: It’s all what made me better than the rest. I liked being better than the rest.

As we stumbled to the car after that daylong effort on the Direct Route, my arms and legs felt tired, my mouth parched. I was good at this. I didn’t need to eat much food, drink much water. I was a low-maintenance girl. I always got patted on the back for not taking up too much space and being able to suffer with the best of them. There were times when I was climbing that I wept with fear, with fatigue, with regret. But when I did, I tried to hide it. I’d had that instinct from my earliest climbing days, even before I survived a days-long kidnapping during an expedition to Kyrgyzstan. After I made it home (Tommy had pushed one of the armed kidnappers off a cliff — a fall we later learned he had survived — enabling our group of four climbers to escape), I had more than doubled down. Scorning and hiding my feelings, shoving them down, felt admirable to me then. I’d been told it was strength. It felt like strength.

There wasn’t much room for women or feelings at the top of the sport back then. A handful of us were landing on the covers of magazines or vying to be the token featured woman at a climbing film festival, but I learned early on that as good as I was at actually climbing, I needed to be able to suffer to stand out. Climbing through a broken foot? Amazing, here’s a raise. Did you hear how many hours they went without food and water for the summit? Make a feature movie about them. As much as logistics and physical prowess, subscribing to the bravado was part of the job description in climbing. And for years, I was all in.

I can’t say there was one moment, a specific event that made me start to question the “suck it up, Rodden” theme song I had lived by for so long. I got divorced, and eventually remarried; I got injured over and over. After years of injuries I had a child, and that led to relearning my body. Maybe it was the scale of all those changes in my life that forced me to reconsider the way I’d always done things, or maybe I just got fed up with the facade. Why was it noble to climb through cracks on El Cap soaked with climbers’ urine, but leaking while jogging postpartum was something to be ashamed of?

Gradually, I began to question the old mentality. I began to be more open about what I found value in, and learned to share my pain and my fears with friends instead of hiding them behind a perma-smile. I started to be kinder to myself, and to be frank that, as effective as it had been for me and my career, I just didn’t see the point in suffering for the sake of a climb anymore. In letting go of that, I was surprised to find a new kind of strength — something perhaps truer and more durable than the ability to just plow through.

I am still a professional climber, though I haven’t been at the peak of the sport in a very long time. I still have goals, and I still love the feeling of trying hard and succeeding, but I love easy days at the crag with a group of girlfriends just as much. My sponsors have found value in partnering with me beyond the number grade assigned to a climb that I’ve done. Instead, we’ve realized together that none of these topics that have plagued the community for so long will go away if left in silence. Making the sport more inclusive, speaking about the ways that climbing can and should evolve as it grows in popularity, is my current project.

This past winter found me injured and on the sidelines yet again. But this time, instead of hobbling around with a crutch and a cast on my leg or having a finger splinted up, I was carrying a foam pad wherever I went, so that I could easily get into a horizontal position. Ten years after I’d given birth, my postpartum bladder prolapse symptoms had returned. Naturally, people would ask why I wasn’t climbing. Years earlier, I would have been mortified. But now I answered bluntly: “I blew out my pelvic floor .” To my surprise, most everyone would sit down, ask what that meant, how it happened, what the symptoms were, what recovery would look like.

I’m not the only one who’s changed. Climbing has come so far in the 30 years since I started in the sport. Today, instead of getting dropped by their sponsors, women can continue their careers with vigor after having children. Mental health awareness and therapy are widely accepted (which is imperative in a community that experiences so much death and trauma), and now, perhaps even conversations about vulnerabilities like perimenopause and prolapse don’t have to be hidden. I like to think we’re starting to embrace a softer kind of strength. Maybe taking care of ourselves, whatever that looks like, can now be as celebrated as dodging death for a summit.

Beth Rodden is a professional climber and the author of the forthcoming memoir, “A Light Through the Cracks.”

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