Machinal And Expressionism 
Djordje Janicijevic Sophie Treadwell’s play,
Machinal is an expressionistic play written in 1928, depicting a life of young woman who can not adapt with people and environment around her.
Expressionism, is an artistic style that originated in Germany at the end of the 19th century in which the artist aims to depict subjective perspective of the character through distortion and exaggeration of reality. Expressionist plays often amplify the inner awakening and suffering of the main character. The expressionist dramas have specificity in: mood atmosphere, setting, plot, structure, characters, dialogue, movement, acting style. In this reading response paper, I will define few specific elements of expressionistic drama that I listed above and find examples from the play that depict typical traits of expressionism. Expressionism emerged in Europe just before 20th century, it reach it’s peak from 1910 until 1925 incited by overwhelming social and political disorder caused by First World War. The ugliness and devastation of the war made expressionist writers separate from other dramatists who otherwise cherished the industrial growth. In the beginning of the 20th century, machines became common things. Mechanization of work force and their correlation with war, created a feeling of great fear that machines would destroy humanity. Wherefore Expressionist dramatists endeavour to highlight the moral crisis of the collective. They did it by employing a number of stylistic tools to emphasize universality in human emotions for instance emphasized movement or dialogue. Expressionists consider that primary human necessities and expressions unify people of all classes.
In
Machinal
(meaning mechanical in French) none of the characters has a given name.
Most of the characters are nameless or they are characterized by their occupation. Therefore we have character names such as Adding Clerk, Filing Clerk, Doctor, Priest Judge and etc. This
Machinal is an expressionistic play written in 1928, depicting a life of young woman who can not adapt with people and environment around her.
Expressionism, is an artistic style that originated in Germany at the end of the 19th century in which the artist aims to depict subjective perspective of the character through distortion and exaggeration of reality. Expressionist plays often amplify the inner awakening and suffering of the main character. The expressionist dramas have specificity in: mood atmosphere, setting, plot, structure, characters, dialogue, movement, acting style. In this reading response paper, I will define few specific elements of expressionistic drama that I listed above and find examples from the play that depict typical traits of expressionism. Expressionism emerged in Europe just before 20th century, it reach it’s peak from 1910 until 1925 incited by overwhelming social and political disorder caused by First World War. The ugliness and devastation of the war made expressionist writers separate from other dramatists who otherwise cherished the industrial growth. In the beginning of the 20th century, machines became common things. Mechanization of work force and their correlation with war, created a feeling of great fear that machines would destroy humanity. Wherefore Expressionist dramatists endeavour to highlight the moral crisis of the collective. They did it by employing a number of stylistic tools to emphasize universality in human emotions for instance emphasized movement or dialogue. Expressionists consider that primary human necessities and expressions unify people of all classes.
In
Machinal
(meaning mechanical in French) none of the characters has a given name.
Most of the characters are nameless or they are characterized by their occupation. Therefore we have character names such as Adding Clerk, Filing Clerk, Doctor, Priest Judge and etc. This