Machinal Summary

Inspired by the case of Ruth Snyder, an adulteress who died in the electric
chair for the murder of her husband, Machinal is the tragedy of an
individual alienated from a crowded, hard society. It is told in nine
episodes in an expressionistic style, dramatized consistently from the
viewpoint of the Young Woman. Each episode depicts a phase in the Young
Womans life, usually a situation in which a woman is supposed to be
fulfilled. In only one phase does the Young Woman find companionship,
peace, freedom, happiness, beauty, or meaning and that episode leads to
her killing her husband and ultimately to her own death.
Episode One To Business
The play opens in a business office where typical office employees
vocalize their working procedures, and in staccato, repeat themselves as
well as office gossip. Through the gossip, the audience learns that the
Young Woman lives with her mother and has no social life but that the
Boss is sweet to her. The Young Woman distinguishes herself from the
office regimentation by being late to work. She explains that she had to
escape the airless crowd of the subway and walk in fresh air. The Boss
proposes marriage, but the Young Woman is repelled by his touch. The
other girls approve of marrying for security, apart from the Telephone girl.
In soliloquy the Young Woman presents a hypothetical scenario that
involves marriage, babies, exhaustion, and the search for real
companionship with somebody.
Episode Two At Home
The Young Woman has no fulfilment in work or in her parental home. The
second episode, accompanied by counterpointing offstage dialogue in
other apartments, reveals the Young Womans bad relationship with her
mother. The Young Woman agonizes over the convention that women
must marry. She tells her mother of her revulsion for her boss and about
her longing for love, but the two women cannot communicate well on this
topic. In exchange for financial security, the mother is quite willing for the
daughter to contract a loveless marriage with a decent man, and the Boss
is a Vice-Presidentof course hes decent.
Episode Three Honeymoon
Eventually the Young Woman marries the Boss. In the grim Honeymoon
episode, the Young Woman is panicky. Although her new husband is not
cruel, he is vulgar. Bragging about the hotel room that costs twelve bucks
a day and repeating crude jokes, he is insensitive to her unwillingness to
undress but is prudish about keeping the curtains closed when his bride is
trying to get a breath of fresh air. The stage notes describe her as having
eyes that are wide with a curios, helpless, animal terror, and she is
reduced to tears.
Episode 4 Maternal
Young Woman is in hospital, having given birth to a baby girl. We get an
impression she has been in the hospital for a long time, and she is
sorrowful that her child is female, as Young Woman fears her daughter will
also be trapped in the system of society, a society with no freedom. The
Doctor describes her as being silent and weakperhaps a suggestion of
post-natal depressionyet the end of the episode focuses on her internal
psychology and the scene ends with her refusing to submit to any such
life.
Episode 5 Prohibited
Prohibited as a title for Episode five is a play on words for the setting of
this scenea speakeasyand Young Woman feeling like she is banned
from freedom. It is in this scene that Young Woman meets the man she
will have an affair with. The audience see her laugh for the first time and
she is completely honest with him, as is he; telling Young Woman that he
killed two men with a bottle full of stones, to escape, to get free.
Episode 6 Intimate
Young Woman is now referred to as Woman. She recalls a memory from
when she was a little girl with her grandmother, something we never saw
her do with Mr Jones. She says to Man we belong together and states I
never knew anything like this way! I never knew that I could feel like this!
So, - so purified! She takes a lily from his apartment, and thanks him for
making her feel freedom.
Episode 7 Domestic
Woman is once again referred to as Young Woman. Mr Jones reads a line
from the paper with great importance, All men are born free and entitled
to the pursuit of happiness. We know that this is not true of all men. This
statement also fails to include women, suggesing their place in society at
this time. Voices of her lover fill Young Womans head; a repetition of
stones, head stones is heard. She cries out in terror and we assume she
has killed her husband, in the same manner her lover killed two men
with a stone filled glass bottle.
Episode 8 - The Law
The scene is set inside the courtroom of her trial. Young Woman denies
murdering her husband Mr Jones. The Lawyer for the prosecution asks
Young Woman if she recognises a lily from her apartment. She denies. But
the Lawyer for the prosecution obtains a letter written by her lover,
stating that he gave her the blue bowl filled with little pebbles and the lily,
being used as evidence. Young Woman confesses to the murder of her
husband, and when asked why she did it, she replies To be free. The
judge follows, If you just wanted to be free why didnt you divorce him?
to which she states Oh I couldnt do that! I couldnt hurt him like that!
Episode 9 - A Machine
The final episode follows Young Womans journey from prison to her death.
She weeps as they shave a section of her hair, and cries out Submit!
Submit! Is nothing mine? The hair on my head! The very hair on my head.
Young Woman asks the Priest why the act of a sin she committed was the
only happiness she ever truly had? At the last moment, she pleads to
speak to her daughter, to tell her to live, but it is too late, and as she calls
out, her voice is cut off and she dies.

Machinal Research
Machinal is a 1928 play by American playwright and journalist Sophie
Treadwell, inspired by the real-life case of convicted and executed
murderer Ruth Snyder. Its Broadway premiere, directed by Arthur Hopkins,
is considered one of the highpoints of Expressionist theatre on the
American stage. It premiered on the 7th September, 1928 at Plymouth
Theatre.