obligations
The Young Woman, Helen, is faced with many different obligations. As a girl in the 1920’s without a father or a husband, she must find a way to support herself as well as her mother. When her boss asks her to marry him, she is left with a dilemma: she does not love Mr. Jones, but she cannot refuse him or else she will be out of work. When she tells her mother that she is hesitating because she does not love him, her mother bullies her into a decision by confronting her with harsh reality.
“Love!—what does that amount to! Will it clothe you? Will it feed you? Will it pay the bills? ... I’ll tell you what you can count on! You can count that you’ve got to eat and sleep and get up and put clothes on your back and take ‘em off again—that you got to get old—and that you got to die. That’s what you can count on! All the rest is in your head!” (2.120-80).
After fighting with her mother and herself, the Young Woman decides that she must marry her boss. After all, “all women get married, don’t they?” (2.87).
Once married, the Young Woman must soon perform the duties of a wife. Her new husband, with his condescending language and fat, flabby hands, is only too eager to explore his pretty young wife once they have reached their honeymoon suite. Unprepared for a life trapped within a loveless marriage, the new Mrs. Jones stands terrified before this disgusting man who she must sleep with. Dressed in only her night gown, she begins to call out for her mother, for someone, for anyone who could possibly release her from this obligation.
Intimacy inevitably leads to children. Episode 4 of Machinal is set in the Young Woman’s hospital room after she has given birth to a baby girl. This child is yet another worry and obligation in the Young Woman’s life, and she is terrified for the little girl and the obligations that will reappear in her life. Her postpartum depression makes her feel as though she is suffocating and is trapped once again; the new mother begins gagging in her hospital bed to the point where even her nurse shows concern. However, these women live in a world dominated by men, and while the husband tells the Young Woman that she is fine, the male doctor orders the nurse about.
The Norton Anthology of Drama