The Matchmaker Summary
Thornton Wilder

Everything you need to understand or teach The Matchmaker by Thornton Wilder.

The Matchmaker Summary & Study Guide

30 The Matchmaker Lessons
20 Activities
180 Multiple Choice Questions
60 Short Essay Questions
20 Essay Questions
Pre-Made Tests and Quizzes
...and more

The Matchmaker Summary

Thornton Wilder's play The Matchmaker is a farce in the old-fashioned sense. It uses such time-honored conventions as characters hidden under tables and in closets, men disguised as women, a complex conspiracy to bring young lovers together, and a happy ending in which three couples are united with plans to marry. The traditional aspects of the play should come as no surprise: Wilder himself was the first to acknowledge the sources that it...

(read more from the Study Guide)

Study Pack

The The Matchmaker Study Pack contains:

The Matchmaker Study Guide

Free Quiz

Characters

Themes

Style

Criticism

Adaptations

Topics for Further Study

Thornton Wilder Biographies (7)

Thornton Niven Wilder

802 words, approx. 3 pages

Novelist and playwright Thornton Niven Wilder (1897-1975) won two Pulitzer Prizes for his plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, written in 1938 and 1942 respectively. His most renowned novel, The ... Read more

Thornton (Niven) Wilder

531 words, approx. 2 pages

Thornton Wilder, the only writer to receive Pulitzer Prizes for both plays and a novel, once observed, "I guess I was the only writer of my generation who didn't 'go to Paris!'" For him the road abroa... Read more

Thornton (Niven) Wilder

10,351 words, approx. 35 pages

On the strength of only three full-length plays and a bare handful of one-acts, Thornton Wilder ranks among the top half dozen playwrights in the history of American theatre. The modest volume of his ... Read more

Thornton (Niven) Wilder

4,086 words, approx. 14 pages

Thornton Wilder, one of the last in the line of the New England puritan writers, was born in Madison, Wisconsin, on 17 April 1897. Second son of Amos Parker Wilder, a native of Maine and a descendant ... Read more

Thornton (Niven) Wilder

14,633 words, approx. 49 pages

Thornton Wilder was a student of the human condition; in his writing he aimed for and achieved the universal. His plays in particular were concerned with both the timely and the timeless, and he most ... Read more

Thornton Niven Wilder

11,258 words, approx. 38 pages

Biography EssayOn the strength of only three full-length plays and a bare handful of one-acts, Thornton Wilder ranks among the top half dozen playwrights in the history of American theater. The modest... Read more

Thornton Wilder

4,534 words, approx. 16 pages

A noted dramatist, novelist, and essayist, Thornton Wilder's name is known to most U.S. high school and college students because of the fame of his play, Our Town. First performed before American thea... Read more

Download the Study Pack