MACHINAL: WHEN A WOMAN'S FREEDOM CAN BE SO IMPOSSIBLE THAT SHE MUST KILL AND DIE TO HAVE IT.
A play review by Eduarda Fattori
Machinal is a play by Sophie Treadwell that had its Broadway premiere in 1928. The play depicts the story of a woman who kills her husband. This sentence may seem, to an unsuspecting person, a spoiler of the play's ending. But no, since Treadwell defines that the play is about the story of a woman (who the author reinforces is an “ordinary young woman, any woman”) who kills her husband, not the story of someone's murder.
In this way, it can be understood that, in the context of the play, the murder of the husband by this woman is simply the final consequence of the events of history. In addition, considering the play as a whole, it can be inferred that these events are the search for the young woman's freedom from the society that repressed her and that the murder of her husband would be her only path to emancipation.
The non-conformity of the protagonist concerning what was expected of her appears in the first episode, in which she does not adapt to the almost robotic work she had. Until the final episode, it is discussed by the people around her that her reaction, when faced with death, is unusual. This contrast brings the young woman a feeling of imprisonment throughout the play as if she was destined, or forced, to follow life in a predetermined way.
The protagonist expresses her thoughts and doubts in a stream-of-consciousness form, and these thoughts carry her inevitable disinterest in situations that others around her can enjoy pleasantly. For example, the marriage proposal from her boss, George H. Jones, could provide comfort and stability. Or motherhood, which doesn't bring her joy, but brings her a sense of duty.
In addition, the figure of the husband, whom the protagonist despises, symbolizes the patriarchal society, which overloads her with expectations as a wife, mother, and, primarily, a woman. The protagonist's inability to fulfill these expectations (she fails, in the face of social pressures, as a wife for not loving her husband, as a mother for not having a maternal instinct and, as a woman, for not being pure and having a lover) causes upon the protagonist a sort of an imposter since she doesn't see herself able to truly fulfill them as she hates being in these roles. This can be seen in the play throughout several passages. Nevertheless, it is especially remarkable in the passage in which the husband perceives her avoidance of his touch as a sign of purity and she feels uncomfortable with the “praising”, and even thinks of disagreeing with him, but, instead, silences herself.
The protagonist's dissatisfaction with situations others may consider promising explains her feelings of imprisonment and why she perceives decision-making as nothing but another way of following society’s demands. It also supports her trial, when she confesses that she killed her husband to be free. Because for her, her husband was the ultimate representation of her current life. Divorce was not an option, because even if she were no longer married she would still be stuck with her husband.
In conclusion, in addition to being a play from the first half of the 20th century, written by a woman, it portrays a woman and her questions about her role in the world and exposes taboos, from then and now in a modern way. The play has also innovated by portraying the layers of how the woman was gradually feeling more suffocated and, at the same time, motivating herself to become her own husband's killer.
