Sophie Treadwell’s “Machinal”, Essay Example

Plays are written for the purpose to tell a story. They have been an essential source of entertainment since the Greek society, and continue to be an avenue to explore major themes that are relevant to modern times. Some of the major themes of philosophy and intellectual thinking are what helped to drive many play writers to create plays in which to spark a social discourse in their audience. In particular, Machinal, a play written by Sophie Treadwell, is a widely expressionist drama based on the real-life of convicted killer Ruth Snyder. Within Treadwell’s play, she provides episodic details of her main protagonist Helen, her tumultuous relationships with her mother and husband, her distaste for technology, an affair, the murder, and trial that leads to her death. Treadwell provides the characterization of Helen as a woman bent on being free but is confined by the expectations of society, her mother, her husband, and worst of all the machines around her. From reading the book, it is clear to the audience that Helen will never be free. Helen is bound by the positivist view that society operates within the compounds of laws based around facts, where the intuitive knowledge is rejected based on only valid knowledge. Treadwell provides several examples of positivism throughout Machinal, more particularly with the character of Helen as she tries to act outside the logical introspect of legal and ethical limitations.  This essay will analyze the machinists’ aspects of the positivist view that is embedded throughout the play.

Helen’s entire life has been dictated for her, she tries to fight against the “machine”, or in her case those around her that convince her that her thoughts do not matter. She is dominated by the feministic view that she must follow the rituals expected of her to be a mother, a daughter, and a wife. Helen like most women in her time are confined by society’s view that regiments women to a minimal role in society. Helen is told repeatedly that her desires and her choice of love is unnecessary. She is forced to be dependent on a boss she repulses and ultimately marries. It was only through a glimpse of passion where she has an affair with a younger man that she sees how the machine around her confines her. The episodic play shares nine chapters within Helen’s life that describe her lack of identity and her new found identity.  Treadwell wrote in time where it largely male dominated, and the social life of the women was facilitated her life to her spouse. The social system would frown and punish women that would try to go beyond the kitchen and into men’s world.  Not only does Treadwell used the story of Ruth Synder as her inspiration, but also on her own experiences as a playwright in a male dominated field, in which she has bitterness against the social machine where many women spend most of their life seeking freedom.

The aspects of Positivism in relation to Expressionism within Machinal, is articulated in the actions of Helen. Helen acts outside her societal limitations because her only option lay in murdering her oppressive husband.  Positivism is a theme that is seen throughout this play. Positivism states that the thoughts of morality is an early form of logical thinking that is imperfect. The logic that gets entrenched in habits and social laws, but which follows its own natural logic.  Positivism is viewed as the perspective that only valid knowledge is the truth. Real knowledge is only from facts, exclusively object sensory experience, and a deduced through logical means. Intuitive and subjective knowledge is rejected by society as it is irrelevant to the nature of laws. Largely associated with realism as an introduction into the literary field, it is this perspective in which Treadwell employs throughout her approach that people and societies are regimented to a larger machine. The heroine, most often seen as a feminist ideal, is actually confronted with a situation that the society did not have an avenue to help her; the economic situation in which she lives in, gives her no alternative.  As Machinal is largely regarded as an expressionist view, she fights as against the machine, particularly those that are close to the protagonist such as society, her mother, and her husband that try influence her to go with facts instead of emotions. However, it is Helen’s refusal of these notions, which Treadwell helps to object to these aspects of positivism.  The play validates her action in a resounding way, and the positivist perspective, her actions would be applauded as her transcending “morality” with a logical solution.  The sexual drives demonstrated in the play are in a sense false motives. They are only a manifestation of the freedom that she craves and deserves. The play’s expressionistic style can be seen as way method in which provides a critique of the abstractions of Positivism.

Treadwell’s expressionist play largely coincides with the maternity cycle that follows nine months, much like pregnancy. The nine episodes express the development of women, with the ninth episode titled “A Machine”, that is used to symbolize that the women’s main role is to be regimented to a machine, only allowed to produce children for a male-dominated world. Positivist aspects that Helen is only used for producing children is aggravated by the emotions that Helen does not want to love the child, that was a product of her own frustration of being forced get pregnant.  She is told repeatedly that her emotions of drowning, suffocation, and fear are imagined. Only for her to build upon these oppressed feelings to act out violently. The aspect of positivism is seen throughout Episode 1 in which, the office girls are talking about the protagonist, as they voice that she does not belong in the office because she is inefficient. (Treadwell, Episode 1, 1928) The only thing that is going for her is Mr. Jones, it is her only option.  She thinks out loud how she could not think to marry Mr. Jones, but all girls are married they must marry and have babies. If she turns him down she will get fired, with no job she has no money, and the bills will be due. The Young Woman goes to her mother for help, however, her mother serves as the voice of society in, that has reared her to be imprisoned into the society where she is a just a machine used for marriage and kids. The mother herself suppressed in her role as she was never able to escape the machine, tells her daughter that she must accept her role in society, and if that means she marries a man she repulses it is okay for her financial security. (Treadwell, Episode 2, 1928) The mother dismisses the daughter’s emotions as, the Young Woman tells her that she cannot marry Mr. Jones, because she does not love him. Her response is, “Love! –what does that amount to! Will it clothe you? Will it feed you Will it pay the bills?” (Treadwell, Episode 2, 1928)From this positivist aspect, love is not anything scientific, love is not real, living where the individual has to go through the daily routine until they die is real. She pinpoints that everything else in the Young Woman’s head, however the women’s view that love should make you feel a certain way is real to her.

The Young Woman marries Mr. Jones, and is weary of her honeymoon. She knows that she must follows these steps as he tells her again, he is her Husband, and this is what is expected of her. (Treadwell, Episode 3, 1928) She is forced into pregnancy on the account she did not want to bear his child, and only cares for the baby, because society will not allow her to abandon it. Her husband represents a positivism aspect as he does not allow her to be alone in her emotions and pain. Instead, he tries to tell her that the pain is nothing, and he has been through worse. She must “brace up, and face things” childbirth is a natural occurrence. (Treadwell, Episode 4, 1928) The doctor is another aspect that forces the Young woman to be with her baby, even after repeated no’s, he forces the nurse to bring the baby, and does the opposite of everything the nurse suggests. Not only does the ire on the aspects of gender oppression, it shows his male superiority that what he says is right, and the objectiveness or the intuition of the nurse is always wrong.

One of the best lines in the play is the Young woman’s unwillingness to submit any further. “I’ve submitted to enough—I won’t submit to any more…” (Treadwell, Episode 4, 1928) It was not until she met the young man, that she is able to get a sense of freedom. She is to feel the emotions that she was told was all in her head. It is important to note, that in Episode Six, Treadwell changes the protagonist title from Young Woman to Woman, as for the first time she is treated, not as a child but as an equal partner. She develops many characterizations, as she is able to express herself more than in any time. Throughout Episode Seven, the Young woman feels as if she is drowning, her husband tells her she is imagining that. However, she knows that what she feels is real. She feels trapped and longs for death, her husband keeps negating her thoughts as she expresses she is scared, she cannot sleep, and how the full moon means something to her. Just like the machine that is society, all of her objective thoughts are dismissed because they are not shrouded in facts, in Helen’s case, what she believes could not be anything because the husband does not think it is anything.  However, she knows what she feels, and although he tries to fight her she cannot escape those feelings. She “hears” the voice of her lover, imaging that she can be free, she chooses to kill her husband.  (Treadwell, Episode Seven, 1928)

In Episode Six, while Helen is in court, the positivist perspectives is once again exemplified as the lawyer for the defense contest her view of her marriage. He barrages her with questions about her marriage, that within the six years of her marriage, they did not fight that she was in a “happy marriage.” As Helen agrees they didn’t quarrel than what the lawyer states has to be a fact. This simplistic view of the state of marriage is obviously wrong, as upon entering marriage, the wife was unhappy, but the valid knowledge was that since there was no quarrel it was a happy marriage.  She confessed to killing her husband, because she wanted to be free. She felt that divorce was not an option but, instead to put him out his misery. She endured the pains of childbirth, as she didn’t want to love the child. Society and those around her telling her, her emotions didn’t matter, and it was all imagined only pushed the rage inside her, to climax for her to murder her husband. In the minutes before her death, she realizes that she will never be free she would also have to submit, even as she is about to die. (Treadwell, Episode 9, 1928) The barber voices, “You’ll submit my lady. Right to the end you’ll submit.” (Treadwell, Episode, 1928) His line echoes as the theme of not only her life but so many during her time. She was in a male dominated society in which, women were used as machines to only sexual gratification and the fulfilment of rearing children. Women are used a tool to manipulate the system and have to submit to the demands of the machine.

Throughout the play, Treadwell tries to critique the views of realism, or in this case the positivist view that only valid knowledge is right, and everything else is irrelevant. Through the roles of the mother denying the emotions of love, the women in the office that voice she must marry him to live, her husband that negates all her feelings to her imagination, and even to her lawyer that instills in her that her marriage was happy. However, Helen the young woman tries to find freedom, she fights with her mother, knowing that she is not in love but concedes because it is her role to play. She continues this role into motherhood, as she tries to grapple with submitting to the machine she is forced into. She finds a second of freedom and happiness as she is able to share true emotions, only to be bound by her husband once more. It is to the very end she realizes that she can’t be win against the machine. In positivism seen throughout the play, Treadwell does a great job of showing how much Helen tries to fight against these views. Even she speaks to herself, she tries to convince herself that she won’t submit to these “facts” that she can’t win. While she couldn’t prove what love was real, she knew to the very end, that it wasn’t between her and husband wasn’t real, and the feelings between her and the young man were real. She knew what was real to her, and through expressionism she is able to spur an awakening through the suffrage of her identity into society.

References

Treadwell, Sophie. (1928). Machinal. Royal National Theatre. London.