Thornton Wilder Despite the three Pulitzer prizes awarded him, Thornton Wilder may very well [have turned] out to be one of the few enduring writers of our time...There have been countless other authors who in his day have been far more "discussed." That was inevitable for a man who has neither hastened to follow nor troubled to oppose the current mode, who has gone his own way, and who has clearly never sought the popularity which has periodically been his (Unger 355). The key to his significance is his extraordinary ability to combine his philosophy and ethics with his personal experiences in perhaps one of the greatest paradoxical plays