"Only it seems to me that once in your life before you die you ought to see a country where they don't talk in English and don't even want to." The stage manager enters briskly from the right. He tips his hat to the ladies (P.21) The stage manager again in his embodiment of the town must intervene on this discussion and he proceeds to change the subject. This represents once more the town's hesitance to talk about things upsetting the daily routine of Grover's Corners, one of these being death. What if the rooster didn't crow in the morning? Or the train for Boston never came? Or someone went to Paris? Death is the one thing the citizens of Grover's Corners cannot rely on, and that mystery is what makes death the ultimate barrier for them. In their reluctance to face adulthood, the young adults of Grover's Corners struggle to cope with the burden of adulthood that alters everything. George Gibbs does not want to grow up, because it is the next step down the road that he does not want to see the end of. "Listen, Ma, for the last time I ask you All I want to do is to be a fella." (P.78) George wants to stay a teenager, and not go through these transformations because of what they represent in the long run. Even though he must move on, George attempts to hang on to the rituals that he once enjoyed. "Now, Ma, you save Thursday nights. Emily and I are over to dinner every Thursday night you"ll see." (P.78) Also, Emily shares the same plight with clinging on to the childhood she has come to know and love. "Don't you remember that you used to say, - all the time you used to say - all the time: that I was your girl! There must be lots of places we can go to. I"ll work for you. I could keep the house." (P.79) Emily wants to stay a child for the same reasons that George wants to be a fella again; she doesn't want to face the realities of life's alterations. She ends up trying to control something she cannot, just as the people of the Grover's Corners try to beat death by ignoring it.
