Kreger is a Ph.D. candidate and instructor at the University of California, Davis. In this essay, she examines how Wilder joins innovative theatrical techniques, classic themes, and American optimism to create the mythic world of The Skin of Our Teeth.

The Skin of Our Teeth is a play full of paradoxes When audiences first viewed Thornton Wilder's comedy in 1942, they were confronted by events which seemed to take place both in the distant past and the immediate present, characters who were both age-old allegorical figures and contemporary actors, and dialogue that was both irreverent and philosophical. Wilder's theatrical techniques were undeniably innovative for his time; he broke with the conventions of naturalistic theater that had guided previous generations of American playwrights. But perhaps the central irony of the play is that it uses these progressive techniques to present an extremely traditional message. In The Skin of...