Thornton Wilder's Our Town comes in for its share of negative criticism. Most stringent are comments about his refusal to deal with controversial elements of Grover's Corners — particularly bigotry, alcohol abuse, and sex discrimination. He seems to gloss over the segregation of Polish and Canuck citizens, who appear to reside in a lesser section of town across the tracks, where the Catholic Church is located. Like the three families with Cotahatchee blood, the non-WASP residents of the town seem to blend harmlessly into the landscape — out of sight and out of mind.
In similar fashion, Wilder seems unwilling to tackle the larger question of Simon Stimson's alcoholism and resulting suicide, which receives pointed but benign acknowledgment from Dr. Ferguson, choir members, Constable Warren, and the undertaker. Even though alcohol consumption was a serious issue at the turn of the century when Carry Nation and hatchet-swinging members of the Women's Christian Temperance Union were demolishing saloons and urging drinkers to "take the pledge," Wilder passes by his opportunity to mount the soapbox. He resorts instead to Dr. Gibbs' tight-lipped comment: "Some people ain't made for smalltown life " The playwright even allows Mr. Webb to end the question of local drinking habits with a folksy — and erroneous — truism that "likker" is "right good for snake bite, y'know — always was ".
