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Abstract
In "New Critical Approaches to Machinal: Sophie Treadwell's Response to Structural Violence," Miriam López Rodríguez sets aside the usual evaluation of Machinal as an innovative expressionist play in order to cast the protagonist as a young woman much like Treadwell herself, who felt victimized by "the American mechanized and sexist society of the 1920s" (81). Jerry Dickey considers in "Working Women and Violence in Jazz Era American Drama" how the public debate over women entering the workplace, particularly the business office, revealed a fracturing of women's sense of self. Besides the familiar Machinal, Dickey discusses Maureen Watkins's Chicago, Francis Faragoh's Pinwheel, and Elmer Rice's The Subway, lesser-known plays that muted the distinction between the virtuous angel of the house and the worldly, sensual temptress.