Elmer Rice’s The Adding Machine: An Expressionistic Picture of a Worker’s Oppression

          Expressionism is a twentieth century artistic theory that flourished in Europe immediately after World War I as a radical reaction against the realistic school. It helped in raising the individual’s social awareness to the level of understanding his responsibility to make the necessary reforms for the well-being of his society. Elmer Rice, the American dramatist, considers Expressionism as “an attempt to go beyond mere representation and to arrive at interpretation” (124).
          However, Expressionism generally aims at making inner experience concrete by exploiting some of the new modern theatrical devices such as revolving stage, masked characters, symbolic setting, dislocate a time–sequence, cryptic and patterned dialogue, as well as special effects in lighting, and sound.
          Elmer Rice is a man of principles, categorized by many as a rebel and a reformer. He recommended a society based on social justice and freedom whose individuals are capable of self-development and change. He experimented with a variety of dramatic techniques in his plays especially in The Adding Machine reflecting thus his growing interest in the highly subjective and nonrealistic forms of expressionism. However Rice’s main concern was to improve the quality of American life by uncovering its many imperfections as well as to elevate American theatrical production to compete with its European counterparts.    
          In 1923,Elmer Rice’s The Adding Machine was considered as one of the finest examples of expressionism both in its subject matter and innovative form. Throughout itseight scenes that followed Mr. Zero’s life, death, and after death, Rice succeeded in presenting his message by depicting man’s plight being a victim of capitalistic system that turned him into a slave to the machine. He also condemns modern man’s submissiveness to any oppressive system and called for a peaceful revolt or “utopian socialism” as the best solution to free his body, soul, and mind.