Play Card 5: Machinal
Machinal is an expressionist play written by American playwright Sophie Treadwell in 1928. Expressionism is defined as a rejection of realism that projects human emotions and seeks truth in humanity’s spiritual qualities. Elements included abnormal coloring on stage, mechanical movement, and nightmarish visions of humanity. Furthermore, protagonists in expressionist plays are seeking the goal of fulfillment, and the Young Woman in Machinal is seeking her fulfillment of peace and freedom.
Plot: The story consists of 9 “episodes” and revolves around a Young Woman who is following the mechanicalized role that women were expected to follow in society: having a job, a home, a husband, and children. Episode One begins in
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The workers tell Young Woman that their boss George H. Jones wants to meet in his office, and he proposes to Young Woman. In Episode Two, Young Woman is at home talking to her mother about refusing George's marriage proposal because she does not love him, but her mother claims that she would be crazy for not marrying a man who will give her shelter and financial stability. Young Woman decides to marry Geroge. Episode Three takes place in a hotel room on Young Woman and George’s honeymoon. Young Woman is afraid and skittish of George’s affectionate advances, and she goes into the bathroom crying because she misses her mother. In Episode Four, Young Woman is in a maternity ward and just gave birth to baby girl she clearly does not want. She violently chokes and gags and repeatedly asks to be left alone, but her husband and the doctor tell her to pull herself together. In Episode Five, the Young Woman, Telephone Girl, and two men all meet up together at a speakeasy. Young Woman makes a flirtatious connection with one of the men, and goes to his apartment in Episode Six. It is implied that the two made love, and the Young Woman asks to keep a flower she notices …show more content…
To start, the Young Woman is forced to conform to society’s ideal way of life for a woman. Everything in the Young Woman’s society is cold, overpowering, and mechanical. With each episode, she falls deeper into conforming into society’s expectations, especially when she marries her boss. For example, when she tries to explain to her mother that she cannot marry a man she does not love, her mother argues, “Love! - what does that amount to! Will it clothe you? Will it feed you? Will it pay the bills?” (17). Furthermore, gender inequality is a major issue in this play. The Young Woman has all of her decisions made for her, and the machine noises playing in the background represent the anxiety and uncomfortable energy growing inside of her. The Young Woman marries a man she does not love, gives birth to a child she does not want, and has an affair with a man she can never have. Gender inequality factors into all of these obstacles the Young Woman dealt with throughout the play. Finally, unjust punishment is a theme because the Young Woman is sentenced to death for murdering her husband. Unfortunately, the society she lived in failed to understand that the Young Woman did not want to conform to its mechanicalized way of life. She became so mentally ill by suffering through a life she did not want that she murdered her husband to finally feel free. “When I did what I did I was
The propaganda pictures can be analyzed through the process of SOAPSTone. The speakers are the sponsors or organization that approved of the picture; the speaker of the pro and con are WikiLeaks and the NSA, CIA, and FBI respectively. The immediate occasion is 2009, which is shown through the copyright year or the year of approval of the picture. The large occasion is the huge WikiLeaks controversy. The audience, which is the same for both, is the citizens of the United States, and it is shown through direct speech in the pro image or the image on the laptop in con image. The two purposes of the sides are quite different. The pro side is trying to persuade U.S. Citizens to group up and stop U.S. document confidentiality with the help of the
She moves out as a result of her husband abusive character. She tries to get accepted into the society that already has a misconception about her. That she is promiscuous. She was raped by her teacher, which is the reason of her early teen pregnancy. The society judges her as having no morals without the knowledge that her early pregnancy was as a result of the conflict that was directed toward her.
Instead of protecting herself by pretending to be masculine and tough, she understands how much power a female figure holds. This portrays the internal growth she has made as time progressed. At the beginning, she was angry at the world and was indignant at the fact that she was a weak girl. With experience, she was able to embrace her true identity and view the hidden power she always had within her. This transition from the past to the present shows off how one’s mind can evolve and learn to accept
When someone feels like they have earned something they will take it even if it does not belong to them. Women are not prizes to be won and owned. The setting of the story affect attitudes toward women and their role in society. The setting of the story is during the first-wave of feminism when women were getting the right to vote and other legal liberties.
In a nutshell she was just a young girl, then got married and died. The message I personally got from the play was to live life to the fullest because I personally wouldn’t want three relatively short acts to describe my life from start to
Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal exemplifies many characteristics of expressionism. Expressionism views technology and industrialism as the tools in materialistic society. The play uses industrialism in Episode One with the sounds of typewriters, filing cabinets, adding machines and the switchboard, which can be scene on page 580 line one. These mechanical sounds begin at the start of the scene and are present until the end of Episode One. Machinal also exemplifies the thematic organization of an expressionistic drama. Each episode is structured as an individual theme, rather than a cause and effect relationship. Page 580 starts the story with Episode One “To Business,” page 587 Episode Two “At Home,” page 593 Episode Three “Honeymoon,” page 597 Episode Four “Maternal,” Episode Five “Prohibited,” page 609 Episode Six “Intimate,” page 614 Episode Seven “Domestic,” Episode Eight “The Law,” and finally page 629 Episode Nine “A Machine.” The message is the most important part of each of these thematic scenes.
She realises that she has been living with a stranger, since the whole marriage is a charade to fulfil the expectations of Victorian society.
The women of the story are not treated with the respect, which reflects their social standings. The first image of the women that the reader gets is a typical housewife. They are imaged as “wearing faded house dresses and
Contemporary realism can be defined as a straightforward realistic approach of representation. This play does exactly that. This play takes place during a civil war, and Nottage gives realistic examples of what it was like to live as a female during that time. To understand why the characters act they way they do, you have to see what shaped them into the person they are. In contemporary realism, the characters are all products of their society. The leading female characters in this play are Mama Nadi, Sophie, Salima, and Josephine. Before the war, all four of these women had happy lives filled with content, but in the heat of the war all of them were stripped of something they treasured. For example, Salima’s baby was murdered, and Josephine was taken away from her family who were the head of their tribe. The way these characters acted during the play was completely affected by their past. Another characteristic of realism is the belief that experiences are conditioned by society, and no one is truly free until they understand what is holding them back.
The theme displayed throughout the play that will be examined is the effects of low self-esteem on an individual. The main character Queenie seems to suffer from a negative self-image; she does not understand her worth. Her morals are nonexistent, in result, she lives an unstable life full of sex and abuse. Queenie copes with her low self-esteem in many forms throughout the production.
In Animal Farm, by George Orwell, the pig’s personalities change as they begin their journey to power. One of the pigs, Napoleon, shows the most drastic change when it comes to his newfound power. Napoleon becomes more and more manipulative and preeminent as the story progresses. Napoleons’ manipulation is shown when the novel says that, “He was especially successful with the sheep. Of late the sheep had taken to bleating “four legs good, two legs bad” both in and out of season, and they often interrupted the meeting with this” (Orwell 63).
Throughout the story we see the protagonist struggle with the gender roles placed upon her by her society; specifically the role she is supposed to play as
The daughter is bored with her mother's dreams and lets her pride take over. She often questions her self-worth, and she decides that she respects herself as nothing more than the normal girl that she is and always will be. Her mother is trying to mold her into something that she can never be, she believes, and only by her futile attempts to rebel can she hold on to the respect that she has for herself. The daughter is motivated only to fail so that she may continue on her quest to be normal. Her only motivation for success derives from her own vanity; although she cannot admit it to herself or her mother, she wants the audience to see her as that something that she is not, that same something that her mother hopes she could be.
of the play. I will also explore the role the common man plays in the
Big business has a constructive influence on America. Large corporations contribute much more to a country’s economic well being than smaller ones. Bigger corporations are more productive, pay higher salaries and hourly, generate more jobs, and are more successful in international markets. However, not everyone believes that big business has a positive impact for the US. Some hold to the opinion that big business will never be as effective as small businesses. However, as J. D. Harrison, who covers startups, small business and entrepreneurship for the Washington Post, states that even though people believe that small business is the backbone of our nation, yet “companies with more than 500 workers employed about 45 percent of the workforce yet contributed 65 percent of the jobs created since 1990” (The Washington Post, 2013). This is not to discredit the influence of small business in the US. In fact, they are an essential part of our society. Small business have created and maintained thousands of jobs in the last half century. But we will focus on big business in this discussion. What is the history of big business in the US, and what were the fruitful results, as well harmful ones? What about the political side of big business, and finally, are there ethical associations when it comes to large corporations?