Machinal Plot

In the first act Mrs.Gibbs is introduced and characterized as a woman in her mid-thirties, pleasant

of the play. I will also explore the role the common man plays in the

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 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.

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

It plays cold facts of reality on how people lived during early 20th century. Family values, poverty and technology are among the most important and remarkable themes of the story, issues that are still of big concern now in the 21st century. Kate believed in the powerful role that values played in family being fiercely devout to her Catholic and moral disciplines toward her sisters. These beliefs are still on our society though many people are living them behind especially in liberal countries, destroying family integrity. Poverty as we mentioned have always existed, economical depressions and unemployment are the main factors of this struggle. Many people live like the Mandy family today or even worst. Is an issue that the entire world still needs to dial with. On the other hand, through the story we can see how technology connects people being sometimes a good distraction for making great memories with the people you love; back in time with just one radio and now with different devices that bring us closer than ever. As the audience mentioned “This play reflects charged emotions about Irish living conditions. The spirit of music and dancing among the sisters let them forget about their troubles and kick up their heels, bittersweet.

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.

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

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.

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

But the main theme in the book and the play is ‘murder’. The whole play revolves around this mysterious murder, eventually we find out that the murder revolves around money. It shows us that people will do anything and everything in the pursuit for money. The play has a universal theme, meaning that everyone could relate to it. Not everyone has killed someone to get money, but everyone can understand the lengths some people go to obtain what is not rightfully theirs, especially money.

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 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.

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.