“2490, 28, 76, 123, 36842, 1, 1/4, 37, 804, 23 1/2, 982.”
The first spoken words in the play immediately situate the theme outlined in the title that people are becoming dehumanized and increasingly mechanical in the modern world where machines do what used to do be done by hand. Underlining the fact that the opening words are not even words, but numbers, is the stage direction indicating precisely how the actor should say the lines: “in the monotonous voice of his monotonous thoughts.” The playwright wants to make absolutely certain that the point of starting her play this is made by guiding the actor to the finer details of his performance. This a not simply a direction to speak in a monotone, but insight in the mechanized breakdown of individuality in which even his thoughts have become detached from humanity. He literally works an adding machine while metaphorically having become an adding machine.
“Do you get used to, it—so after a while it doesn’t matter? Or don’t you? Does it always matter? You ought to be in love, oughtn’t you, Ma? You must be in love, mustn’t you, Ma? That changes everything, doesn’t it—or does it?”
In a desperate, but vain attempt to communicate the depth of feelings about marrying a man she does not love simply to meet the conventions and expectations of society, Helen makes is pretty clear to the audience—if not her mother—that marrying George is really quite possibly the worst idea she’s ever contemplated. Outwardly, she is not a representative of rebellion or non-conformity in any way. Alone among the characters, however, Helen is given the opportunity to reveal to the audience through a few stream-of-consciousness interior dialogues (or monologues, if you will) that inside she is definitely a radical challenging the patriarchal status quo. At every step along the way she rejects the unpleasant social expectations placed upon her, but her ultimately fatal flaw is an inability to transform thought into action. And when she finally does acquire the ability, it all goes haywire.
“I’ll not submit any more—I’ll not submit—I’ll not submit.”
Giving birth to please societal expectations becomes the straw that starts to break the camel’s back. Society should expect only so much from a woman and coercion into motherhood is the point at which Helen can no longer rebel just inside her own mind. Even though, ironically, this declaration of independence is said as part of one of her expressions of interior thought unheard by any other character. That this is so is significant because it really does intensity her decision to rebel in action as well as thought. These are the final words of Episode Four. The following episode has Helen going with a friend from the office to meet a strange man in a speakeasy. She has taken her rebellion to the next level.
“When I did what I did, I was free. Free and not afraid.”
That rebellion doesn’t go quite so well, though probably as predictably as one might imagine. Rebellion against the patriarchal status quo is not one that has, historically, concluded with quite as many happily ever afters as one finds in fairy tales. Helen follows in the footsteps of Joan of Arc and a handful of “witches” in Salem. A Cinderella story this play isn’t. Her rebellion against the imprisonment of conventional gender roles and societal expectations plays itself out in a violent, hands-on murder of George. She does not escape the long arm of the male-dominated legal system. She is sent to the electric chair though, admittedly, she does manage to perform one last small act of thumbing her nose at society. Before that happens, however, she makes a confession to a priest. Having already confessed to her crime in court, this is a confession from the soul. She admits that she only experienced one moment of pure and absolute freedom in her life and that was when she was swinging a bottle packed with rocks down upon her husband’s sleeping head. One cannot help but wonder whether this admission was not directed in character toward the priest, but out of character toward the audience. Is the playwright trying to send a signal to the women in the audience? Or perhaps a warning to the men in the seats?
