manage to look into those two stores

[shootingstar]

STAGE MANAGER: . . .
Along here's a row of stores. Hitching posts and horse blocks in front of them. First automobile's going to come along in about five years - belonged to Banker Cartwright, our richest citizen . . . lives in the big white house up on the hill.
Here'sthe grocery store and here's Mr. Morgan's drugstore. Most everybody in town manages to look into those two stores once a day.
. . .
(Thornton Wilder, Our Town, Act I)

What does manages to look mean there?. Isn't there any adverb to the verb look that could replace the verb manage in this context? I suspect there is one but I cannot think of one unfortunately.

 

[Barque]

He means "Almost everybody visits those stores every day". He makes it sound as if they make an effort to go there, rather than going there because they need to.

I'm not sure if it's an attempt at humour or a way of speaking that was common at that time or in that area. Perhaps both.

(There's a typo in your title.)

Edit: He might also mean that those stores are a sort of meeting place for the people in that town. Perhaps they make it a point to go there to meet others, catch up on local news etc. Everyone makes time to go there.

 

[Barque]

Reading it again, I tend to the second option--that those stores were a meeting place.

 

[shootingstar]

He makes it sound as if they make an effort to go there, rather than going there because they need to.

I take it to mean just the reverse actually: everybody needs to look into the stores involuntarily, they cannot help looking into those two stores.

 

[Barque]

He wouldn't have used "manages" then. Also, "look in" doesn't mean "glance in while passing" there. It means "enter" or "visit" in this context.

As I said, I initially thought he meant everyone went there every day because they needed to, but now I think he meant everyone made it a point to go there everyday, whether they needed to or not. Everybody manages to look in there = Everybody makes the time to go there.

 

[shootingstar]

What I mean is they cannot avoid or don't get out of looking into those stores. The reason doesn't matter, it's just a fact - they simply have to., it just happens.

 

[Barque]

The reason doesn't matter, it's just a fact - they simply have to., it just happens.

I understood what you mean, but I don't see any basis for that interpretation. There's nothing in those words to suggest it and I'm afraid I don't think it's a logical possibility either.

 

[emsr2d2]

In that sentence, "manages" means "succeeds".

I managed to read three books today = I succeeded in reading three books today

Did you manage to get your homework done?
Yes. It took me four hours, but I did it and managed to hand it in on time.

 

[shootingstar]

In that sentence, "manages" means "succeeds".

However, if you say manages means succeeds in this sentence, isn't that succeed rather meant ironically or with tongue in cheek?

 

[Barque]

No. That's what I thought initially but I think he just means "People make the effort to look into those stores every day".

"Manages" here tells you that, in spite of their work and schedules, people make time to visit those stores every day. They manage to get there once a day.

 

[shootingstar]

that, in spite of their work and schedules, people make time to visit those stores every day.

What do you take make time or make the time to do something to mean there? I only know the phrase make (good, excellent) time (no object).

 

[5jj]

What do you take make time or make the time to do something to mean there?

They make sure that they have sufficient time to do it.

 

[Barque]

What do you take make time or make the time to do something to mean there?

They arrange their daily schedules in such a way that they are able to go to those stores once a day.

"Make time" in this context means "to make sure that you have time to do something, and to do it in that time".