How Is Machinal A Reflection English Literature Essay

How Is Machinal A reflectance English Literature EssayMachinal is a strong echo of its ethnical context, making it an interesting and refreshing piece of theatre. It touches on the rising issues of the time, which would go onto read an immense impact on to daylights popular culture. This makes Machinal both pertinent and timely for a modern auditory sense, without obscuring Treadwells original get under ones skins and views, done her lend oneself of expressionism.Treadwell was unmatchable of the first few dramatists that brought this obscure genre to the Broadway, in the late 20s. The aim of the expressionist movement, which was sh atomic number 18d by Treadwell, was to replicate the cutting and regenerated spirit of American culture. Treadwell uses the character of the spring chicken Woman as a vehicle for this view.though Treadwell never achieved the same celebrated success and recognition of many of her antheral colleagues, today she is considered one of the most accomp lished writers and dramatists of the early twentieth deoxycytidine monophosphate. Machinal is considered the dress hat and most successful of her works and first opened on Broadway in 1928. In a South Atlantic review, (Weiss 2006) states that Treadwell has dedicated her literary life story to exploring the lives and motives of lonely and trapped individuals.In spring 1927, Treadwell attended the infamous runnel of Ruth Synder and her lover, Judd Gray, although, Treadwell did non officially cover the trial as a reporter, the time she spent in the courtroom served as the catalyst for Machinal. Synder implementmed standardized a harmless housewife and her lover was portrayed as an unintelligent accessory in her crimes. The trial attracted an amazing public interest, with over one hundred eighty reporters that wrote a total of 1,500,000 words on the case. Almost every day there was some new coverage about the Synder-Gray trial. The media turmoil did not stop until Synder and Gray were finally executed via an electric chair in January 1928. Synder became the first woman to be executed in 20th century New York State.Many have argued that Treadwell chose to use expressionistic techniques in an strive to focus solely on the theme of one womans imprisonment in an indifferent marriage. By using expressionism, Treadwell distances Machinal from the melodramatic case on which it is establish on.Treadwells character of the childlike woman is the unprecedented embodiment of the 1920s new woman. This new type of woman was not devoted to social service, in comparison to the progressive generations, resulting with a woman to a greater extent in subscriber line with the capitalistic spirit of the era.The first chronological succession takes place within the George H. Jones gild office. The Young woman is late for work and sc centenarianed by her co-workers. Treadwell writes Helen as a unnerved woman, who is distinctly crushed by beau monde a aroma probably expli cit by the old woman. She is often late as she cannot stand the stifling crowds of the subway, this serves as a metaphor for how Helen feels about society in general. Daunted by urban industrialisation, represented here by deafening machine noises, train whistles and welding riveting sounds. (Dolan 1992). Helen wants nothing more put to be free of her prison of a job, but kinda is forced into a callous marriage with an unattractive, unappealing man.Unlike the old woman, the new woman was eager to compete and longing to find private fulfilment. You could argue the new woman, was now selfish. The young woman wants personal fulfilment, whereas, her bugger off clings to the old view of women. Here Treadwell clearly expresses the vast difference surrounded by the Helen and her mothers generation and their personal views of women.What replaced the moralizing piousness of the matriarchy was an irreverent equalitarian popular and mass culture which was steeped in the ethos of terrible honesty as Raymond Chandler puts it. Douglas interprets the desire to strip away the deceptive appearances of modern life and glance the sometimes unpleasant underlying realities (Glenn 1997). This is what Treadwell does with the Husband and the Young Women. On the come along it looks like the perfect opportunity for a marriage, hes a successful clientele man and shes a woman destined for motherhood, with no real future, however, down the stairs the surface a horrific murder takes place.New women withal began staking shout to their own bodies, taking part in a sexual liberation. We see this in Machinal where the young woman doesnt allow her husband to be alike intimate with her, but happily has an illicit love affair with a stranger she has control of her body Many of the ideas of this era, and those Treadwell expands upon in her defraud, have fuelled the quick change in sexual thought. Nevertheless, these ideas were already floating around gifted New York circles prior t o the First World War, in the writings of Sigmund Freud, Havelock Ellis and Ellen Key. Here, thinkers expressed sex as being central to the human experience, emphasising that women atomic number 18 also sexual beings with human impulses and desires, just like their virile counterparts. Restraining these impulses would be self-destructive.By the 1920s these ideas idea flooded the brinystream media. Treadwell puts focus on this again through the young woman (the expressionistic vehicle), as the only way she finds license is through an illicit love affair. Machinal reflects a culture moving snuggled and closer to being more secular and leaving behind scriptural verses such as The women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says.Christianity ineluctably plays a very important role in the last episode of Machinal. The young womans attempt of objectification finally explodes into murder. Treadwell represe nts her final suppression at the give of the church and the court. The ultimate justice of God, where the priest continually says Father liberate her, Christ forgive her. Treadwell is possibly stating how the young woman is now beyond the help of any earthly justice.She is finally secluded behind veto and continues to be determined to resist any governing authority. The executioner crop a clip off her hair, the final invasion of her bodily privacy, this suggests that the young woman has finally been sterilized and is completely under the law.One of Treadwells main messages is that all men are born free, whereas women are not. However, this is not what the leger teaches, the bible teaches that the entire human race are bound by sin, however, it was woman who sinned first and as a punishment she was made to fix to the authority of man and allow her husband to rule over her. This is something that would have been deeply rooted in the views of the people from the 1920s and Treadwe ll is trying to express, that women do not have certain freedoms, like men do. Dolan states that Treadwells text ironizes the fine-looking humanist notion that all me are born free (Dolan 1992).From get on inference we also notice that no one in the play is given a clear identity. The fact that we dont find out what the young womans (Helen) name is until later episodes reveals that this is not important to character development. Many of the characters are defined purely by their occupation or role in life (in the case of the Mother) this device elucidates the idea that the young womans struggles can be the plight of any woman.Machinal can also be read as a feminist version of Elmer Rices 1923 play The Adding Machine, as both plays use expressionistic techniques and attempt to contextualize an secluded act of murder. To do so is to come to the abstract mode of Expressionism itself. Writing a type of play meant to cotton up the universality of a subjects experience Treadwell begin s by suggesting her subjects specificity as a woman, and as a woman based on one individual woman. (Strand 1992)The diagram of Machinal might portray Helen Jones as the villain her role is quite the opposite. Treadwell clearly intender her to be a tragic heroine, the play is written with heated anger. Treadwell suggests women are doomed to wander forever in the dead wasteland of male dominated society, under complete authority. Since this is an expressionistic piece, its intent is to convey emotion and feeling, not realism, which would make Helen the villain. Helen does not murder her husband because she is evil she does it because she has no other option.In conclusion, Machinal is indeed a strong representation and expression of the cultural context of the time, using expressionism as a way for the audience to sympathise and empathise with the characters, rather than viewing them as social products of the 1920s, deliverance the characters into the 21st century.