30 pages • 1 hour read
Sophie TreadwellMachinal
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1928A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Intrusion of Offstage Voices
The offstage voices in Machinal are used as a chorus that supports the play’s themes in several ways. First, the voices can obscure what the characters onstage are saying, making these voices symbolic of the lack of humanity and individualism in the world Treadwell creates. Next, the voices can underscore what is happening on stage, such as when Helen and her mother are trying to talk, and the voices of a child and parent are included from offstage. Here, the offstage discussion reinforces the conversation onstage, showing that interpersonal conflict, regardless of the specifics thereof, is omnipresent in Treadwell’s world. The voices also work as a means of externalizing Helen’s internalized emotional landscape. This is of especial use when we think of Helen as a character suffering from Battered woman syndrome, a mode of PTSD. As an individual suffering from BWS, Helen is unable to effectively convey how she feels in most situations, instead internalizing these feelings until they overwhelm her. As the play progresses, and Helen sees her only way out of her relationship with Jones as being through killing him, these voices become an externalization of Helen’s psychosis, such as when the voices offers: “Stones–stones—small stones–big stones–millstones–cold stones–head stones head stones–head stones–head stones.” (1328-1330)
Music and Sounds
The music and sounds Treadwell includes in Machinal, such as the riveting Helen hears in the maternity ward, or the office sounds at the beginning of the play, are an aural symbol for the lack of control the majority of people in Treadwell’s world have over their environment and lives. Prior to Treadwell showing us any characters—any human beings—onstage, the audience first sees and hears machines: adding machines, typewriters, telephones. Humanity is tantamount to this industry; indeed, humans arrive, it would seem, merely to assure that industry can continue on, thereby symbolizing the dehumanization that industry can bring to society.
This notion of production above all else is again symbolized by the sound of metal being riveted in the hospital, when Helen has her child. While the notion of the office as a sort of quasi-factory may be easy to accept, Treadwell views pregnancy and procreation as virtually no different; just as workers are mere cogs for society’s machine, so, too, are women giving birth. The choice of sounds in this episode of the play further objectify Helen and effectively turn her child from human being into product. In Machinal, humans don’t use machines; rather, machines use humans.
