Jerz: Am Lit II (EL 267) (Draft): Rice, The Adding Machine
I was definitely able to find the humor in this story and I would love to see it acted out as a play. I have to admit, I didn't know it had anything to do with communists until I read Jerz reply in Tim's blog. I had only read a few pages prior to that comment and after seeing that and finishing the story, a lot of things fell into place.
First of all, the point that really stuck out to me was the fact that everyone was different but still the same. When Zero has his dinner party, the story reads that all the men and women who came were different shapes and sizes but still wore the same exact clothes but different colors. That reminded me of communism how everyone is supposed to be the same, and in a way reminded me of the whole 1984 Big Brother deal. The same with the way they talked. They talked in unison or they went down the line with Six speaking first and then all the way down to the bottom. This also stood out with the numbers of the characters. Six seemed to be the leader of the group then it worked down to Zero, who wasn't really much and in the end is told he is a failure which the number zero usually represents.
I also enjoyed the noise effect of the story. In the beginning the noise of the adding machine gets louder and louder the more and more crazy that Zero goes until it leads up to him killing his boss for firing him and then the noise finally stops. Or the noise that Daisy can hear, the music, that Zero and his friend cannot hear at first and then Zero thinks he is imagining it later on. Along with the imagining of things, Zero seems to go along with whatever anyone tells him, he sort of conforms to his surroundings. Especially in the end, when he is told that Hope is waiting for him in the tunnel and he believes that he sees her but is actually duped into going back into the world to start as another slave.
In a way, I felt bad for Zero. If I were him, I would have killed my wife before I killed my boss. It seemed to me that she was the one who pushed him over the edge. Where did she get off telling him where to go, what to do, what to wear, and complaining over having to do the housework. Back in that time period, that's what women did! Women didn't go to school, if they did it was rare, so they didn't hold many jobs or high paying ones at that. So Zero was the breadwinner of the family. But she seemed to think she had a horrible life when he was the one who was pulling the brunt of the work. She had no room to complain. Zero had a tedious job when all she had to do was sit at home and cook and clean. Unlike, A Jury of Her Peers, I have to change my opinion in that the women (the other wives included) needed to be put in their place. I don't believe in the whole "women belong in the kitchen" but it seems in this story and time period, that's where they were and they needed to stop complaining that their husbands were doing nothing. Their husbands were the ones providing for them.
I don't think that killing his boss was the answer, but Zero had a job that was repetitious and annoying enough to drive him crazy, we especially see that come out in the court when he just starts blasting off numbers in the middle of his speech. At least he got his final word in to the world before dying. I would go insane with a life like his too.
Posted by LesleyTodoric at February 1, 2005 11:01 AM | TrackBack