Machinal: Episode 1: To Business Summary & Analysis

Before the curtain rises, mechanical sounds whirr in the darkness. Typewriters, adding machines, telephones, and buzzers click, rattle, and ring until the curtain opens on an office, where a stenographer, an adding clerk, a filing clerk, and a telephone girl work at desks, busy on their respective machines. As the adding clerk counts and the stenographer mutters while typing and the telephone girl answers phones, the workers intermittently talk about one of their colleagues, Helen, a young woman who’s late yet again. When the boss, George H. Jones, calls, he asks if Helen has arrived yet, and the telephone girl assures him that she’ll deliver a message to Helen from George as soon as Helen arrives. When she hangs up, the workers gossip about Helen, hinting that she has Mr. Jones in the palm of her hand.

Mr. Jones arrives and asks after Helen again, but the telephone girl informs him that she still hasn’t come in. “I just wanted her to take a letter,” he says, and when the stenographer offers to do it instead, he refuses, saying, “One thing at a time and that done well.” He retreats into his private office just before Helen finally rushes onstage. “You’ll lose your job,” the stenographer says, chiding her for being late four days in a row. Helen then explains that she had to get off the subway on her way to work because the bodies all around her were pressing in. “I had to get out!” she says. “I thought I would faint! I had to get out in the air!” She tells her skeptical coworkers that it felt like she was dying.

The telephone girl tells Helen that Mr. Jones wants her, saying, “He’s bellowing for you!” When Helen goes into George’s office, the other workers gossip about her once more. “Do you think he’ll marry her?” the telephone girl asks. “Will she have him?” replies the stenographer. “Will she have him? This agreement entered into—party of the first part—party of the second part—will he have her?” she says, blending her notations and speech. When Helen returns, she sits at her desk. The telephone girl asks if she wants to come on a double date with her, but Helen says she can’t because her mother would “nag” her if she went. “Why don’t you get to work?” says the stenographer. “Can’t,” Helen says. “My machine’s out of order.” The stenographer responds by telling her to sort the mail.

Just as Helen’s coworkers start asking her about Mr. Jones’s proposal, he enters and goes to her desk, where he puts his hand on her shoulder and asks if she’s finished his letter. She tells him she hasn’t and goes on sorting the mail until he leaves. Once he’s gone, the telephone girl asks Helen why she flinched when he touched her. “Did he pinch?” she asks. “No!” Helen says. “Then what?” asks the telephone girl. “Nothing!” she replies. “Just his hand.” The telephone girl then says that if this is how she feels, she should refuse Mr. Jones’s marriage proposal. “If she does she’ll lose her job,” the stenographer says. “Fired,” offers the adding clerk. “The sack!” says the filing clerk. If she accepts, though, the coworkers speculate that she’ll live a lavish life with breakfast in bed each morning, a life in which she doesn’t have to work.  

Amid the office chaos—the sounds of typewriters and telephones and the murmurs of her colleagues—Helen thinks aloud to herself, considering Mr. Jones’s proposal while also allowing her mind to wander, evoking the wide range of her daily worries. “George H. Jones,” she says at one point, “—Fat hands—flabby hands—don’t touch me—please—fat hands are never weary—please don’t—married—all girls—most girls—married—babies—a baby—curls—little curls all over its head—George H. Jones—straight—thin—bald—don’t touch me—please—no—can’t—must—somebody—something—no rest—must rest—no rest—late today—yesterday—before—late—subway—air—pressing—bodies pressing—bodies—trembling—air—stop—air—late—job—no job—fired—[…]” As she continues, the lights go out and the sound of machines goes on until the stage brightens once more for Episode Two.