The Adding Machine

“I was a fool for marryin’ you. If I’d ‘a’ had any sense, I’d ‘a’ known from the start. I wish I had it to do over again, I hope to tell you.”

This passage is from later in the same scene, after Mrs. Zero has worked herself up quite a bit and has delivered the majority of her speech. Mrs. Zero places a lot of importance and worth on her husband’s job, in terms of its reflection on their position in society and amongst their friends. At this point, she has convinced herself of her husband’s complacency and lack of ambition, two traits she finds embarrassing and that she feels reflect poorly on her.

“Aw, don’t be givin’ me so many orders […] I don’t have to take it from you and what’s more I won’t.”

From the beginning of Scene 2, Zero and Daisy are at one another’s throats. They trade quips about making each other sick, and Daisy implores Zero to “quit bein’ so bossy,” but he doesn’t. In fact, his next demand is that she “tend to her work.” This is included to show that not only do some women find their space in the “modern” workplace of 1923, but that no women seem to take Zero seriously as a threatening presence––neither in the workplace or the home.

“Women make me sick. They’re all alike.”

Delivered once, this line might feel offhanded. However, Zero repeats this sentiment, “women make me sick,” “just like all the other women,” revealing an ingrained misogyny. His perspective in the workplace today would be considered toxic, and cause for some intervention with Human Resources at minimum; in 1923, these standard measures were not likely in place.

“You didn’t used to be like that. Not even good mornin’ or good evenin’. I ain’t done nothin’ to you. It’s the young girls. Goin’ around without corsets.”

Daisy is quick to blame younger women for the onset of Zero’s bad behavior and lack of manners. She feels that while he used to be polite, she can feel a change in him that, rather than owing it to him, she chalks up to a change in sexual expression amongst women who are rejecting former standards of decency, including the removal of corsets from modern dress wear.

“DAISY: I wish I was dead. ZERO: Maybe another one’ll move in. […] You oughta move into that room.”

At this point, Daisy and Zero have removed themselves from one another’s conversations, and are musing to themselves, wholly unaware of what the other is saying. This passage is representative of the distance apart from one another that has grown. While Daisy contemplates suicide, Zero fantasizes about having her move into his neighborhood so he can peep into her windows at night, as he did with the previous occupant.

“(ZERO looks up and clears his throat. DAISY looks up, startled.) Whadja say? ZERO: I didn’t say nothin’. DAISY: I thought you did. ZERO: You thought wrong.”

Perhaps in acknowledgment of his former rampage against women who make him sick, Zero takes note of Daisy after she announces that the smell of gas makes her sick. At this point, there is no salvaging their former line of communication. Neither party is willing to admit they had been speaking, let alone relate their feelings or dreams to one another. Although it is clear the pair once felt deeply connected, years of working together have dulled their expectations, and numbed their senses.

“I wonder if I could kill the wife without anybody findin’ out. In bed some night. With a pillow.”

This is one of the less offensive expressions of Zero’s proclivity for violence: musing about how and when to kill his wife and whether he could get away with it. These lines arrive before he acts on his impulses toward his boss at the end of Scene 2, and in some ways foreshadow that action. Zero also reveals a deep-seated prejudice against black men, encouraging a lynching and voicing his desire to participate. Later, Zero will try to convince his jury that he is incapable of murder, but from circumstantial evidence like the passage above, it seems clear he is capable of acting on an impulse.

“Maybe it ain’t all your fault neither. Maybe if you’d had the right kind o’ wife—somebody with a lot of common sense, somebody refined—me!”

Again, the impulse is to blame women for the misdeeds of men; Daisy continually circles back from negative thoughts surrounding Zero to the fantasy that she might be able to “fix” him in a way his wife could or cannot. Though she bears witness to the gamut of his worst behavior and thoughts, she continues to fantasize about him, despite lacking any evidence that he is capable of or willing to change.

“But, of course, in an organization like this, efficiency must be the first consideration.”

When the Boss approaches Zero at the end of his workday, Zero expects this might be his moment to be granted a raise; as evidenced here, the Boss has a very different agenda in mind. His excuse is thus, leaning on “efficiency” to deliver his point of imploring that Zero understand why he is being let go. Despite having worked for the company for twenty-five years in the same role, the Boss does not know Zero’s name, nor does he have anything personal to say to him. His allegiance and preoccupations are with the “organization,” rather than the people who make sure it stays running; as he believes, its future will be run by machines anyhow.

“He never talked to me before, see? Except one mornin’ we happened to come in the store together and I held the door open for him and he said ‘Thanks.’ Just like that, see? ‘Thanks!’”

During his trial, Zero is allowed to stand and plead his case to the jury. While he begins strongly, he quickly devolves into a rambling, unintelligible mess. He begins counting, as though he is still in the office now, while relating the events of the evening. He is quick to blame everyone else–his boss, the woman from his neighborhood, but finally, he knows it was his fault, saying, “I didn’t have no right to kill him.”

“Do I look like a murderer? Do I? I never did no harm

Zero claims his lack of prior offenses are reason enough why he should not be tried as a murderer, but not only does he say he never did harm, he says he does not look harmful. Zero believes he has come across as inoffensive, and to some, he probably has. However, he is about to confess to violent and prejudiced thoughts and actions completely unrelated to his case, in order to bring the jurors onto his side. Unfortunately for him, this seems to have the opposite effect on his peers.

“MRS. ZERO (nodding): Yeh. (She takes off the top plate.) Ham an’ eggs! ZERO (joyfully): Oh, boy! Just what I feel like eatin’. (He takes up the wooden spoon and begins to eat avidly.)”

While he is in his cage awaiting execution, on the day of his death, Zero has been offered a final eight-course meal of his own choosing. The guide tells his audience that rather than choose eight different types of food, he has instead elected to have eight plates of ham and eggs. When Mrs. Zero brings another, one may not expect his enthusiastic reaction, until they recall his propensity toward repetitive behavior, as evidenced in his own career as an accountant.

“MRS. ZERO: We had some pretty good times at that, didn’t we? ZERO: I’ll say we did! MRS. ZERO (with a sudden soberness): It’s all over now. ZERO: All over is right. I ain’t got much longer.”

As an outsider looking in, one may not see their current relationship as having been an accumulation of “pretty good times,” but as the two of them present their case, they appear to be like any other married couple, with their ups and downs over the years, and many happy memories tucked away from their early courtship. But their sobriety is short-lived, and soon Mrs. Zero has left in a huff, seemingly forgetting it will be the last chance for her to see her husband alive.

“ZERO: I never heard of a guy killin’ his mother before. What did you do it for? SHRDLU: Because I have a sinful heart—there is no other reason.”

Zero has read about Shrdlu killing his mother in the papers. Shrdlu finds his own behavior appalling and inexplicable, saying that he loved his mother and has always been religious; in fact, he killed her while cutting the lamb for dinner with her and the local minister. Before that act, he had been living “an honest and moral mode of life.” Due to his beliefs, he hopes to be punished justly in the afterlife for his actions. He does not believe he was crazy, and even though his act of killing goes directly against arguably the most foundational Christian ideal of not killing, he also explains his action through religion: that he is simply sinful.

“ZERO (seating himself): Boy, this feels good. I’ll tell the world my feet are sore. I ain’t used to so much walkin’. Say, I wonder would it be all right if I took my shoes off; my feet are tired. SHRDLU: Yes. Some of the people here go barefoot. ZERO: Yeh? They sure must be nuts. But I’m goin’ t’ leave ‘em off for a while. So long as it’s all right. The grass feels nice and cool.”

Zero is so buttoned up that he needs to ask permission before removing his shoes on a lawn. He also seems to think it is a crazy notion that some people might go barefoot in a meadow in the afterlife, or that they would want to spend their afterlife relaxing or following their favorite hobbies, rather than finding a job and settling back into the same, respectable line of work they had done in life. Further, there’s a hypocrisy on display here: Zero is fine with taking off his own shoes but declares others crazy for doing so.

“Yeh. That’s it. I didn’t want to go on livin’. What for? What did I want to go on livin’ for? I didn’t have nothin’ to live for with you gone. I often thought of doin’ it before. But I never had the nerve. An’ anyhow I didn’t want to leave you.”

Daisy (Miss Devore) confesses intense feelings for Zero after she catches up with him in the Elysian Fields. She has killed herself in order to be with him in the afterlife, hoping they would be reunited. When they are–and they find themselves able to speak openly to one another about their feelings–there is a genuine passion between them that is palpable.

“ZERO: You don’t want him to see us layin’ around like this, do you? DAISY: I don’t care if he does. ZERO: Well, you oughta care. You don’t want him to think you ain’r a refined girl, do you? He’s an awful moral bird, he is. DAISY: I don’t care nothin’ about him. I don’t care nothin’ about anybody but you. ZERO: Sure, I know. But we don’t want people talkin’ about us. You better fix your hair an’ pull down your skirts.”

Zero and Daisy have confessed their feelings for one another, and they share a kiss and a dance. “I’m sure crazy about you,” confesses Zero, many times over, and they promise to stay together as long as “they” (presumably, God–or whatever fills that role in the Elysian Fields) let them. But the second Shrdlu reappears, Zero remembers propriety, and reacts conservatively, pushing Daisy away and setting off on a quest for sensible people who do sensible things.

“What! Ministers writin’ smutty stories! Say, what kind of a dump is this anyway?”

According to Shrdlu, it is an honor to stay in the Elysian Fields, because only “the best” can stay forever. But Shrdlu, in painting a picture of the careless nature of its inhabitants, has inadvertently turned Zero against his plan to stay there with Daisy forever. In just moments, Zero has gone from feeling intense desire for Daisy to worrying that he’s acting impurely and lacking a moral code in the afterlife.

“I thought I heard it before but I don’t hear nothin’ now. I guess I must ‘a’ been dreamin’.”

Shrdlu asks Zero if he can hear music playing in the Elysian Fields. Everyone else he has encountered speaks about the beautiful, soothing music they hear at all times, but neither of these souls can hear it. While they don’t question why this might be at the time, after Zero reconnects with Daisy, they both begin to hear it. Now that Zero has begun to reject the way of the Fields (and their pleasures), his ability to hear the music also disappears.

“It don’t make no difference now. Without him I might as well be alive.”

A reversal on her former mantra in the office that she might as well be dead without Zero, Miss Devore has not found happiness––in life or the afterlife––from chasing Zero. The last the reader or audience sees of her is her slowly following him off the stage.

You’ve got a fine idea of the way they run things, you have. Do you think they’re going to all of the trouble of making a soul just to use it once?”

Lieutenant Charles is incredibly condescending with Zero, given that he knows Zero’s memory is wiped each time his soul is returned to the Earth. In Christian tradition, every person has a unique soul, and their soul is retained after the body and brain are dead. All sense of an “afterlife” is split between Heaven, Hell, and a purgatory. Shrdlu’s conception of judgment comes from Christianity; it appears that what Zero believes is also derived from Christian tradition as well. Charles reveals that the afterlife Zero is experiencing is reliant upon reincarnation, in which a single soul reappears on Earth many times on its path to enlightenment.

“Yes, sir, you weren’t so bad then. But even in those days there must have been some bigger and brainier monkey that you kowtowed to. The mark of the slave was on you from the start.”

In the afterlife’s office, Charles reveals to Zero that he began as a monkey and his soul has been getting worse each time it is recycled; thus far, he has been sent to Earth at least 50,000 times. Charles labels Zero a slave, revealing that he worked on the Egyptian pyramids and as a serf. In his past life, he tallied numbers all day; now, he will push a button with his big toe. In Charles’s opinion, while Zero was once at least physically strong he is now both physically and mentally weak.

“You wore an iron collar then—white ones hadn’t been invented yet.”

Arguably the most brilliant and poignant line of the play, here, Zero’s designation as a slave is summed up very succinctly. The “white collar” is a term used to designate office workers with a proclivity for mentally tasking work from “blue collar” tradesmen who would primarily use their bodies during the workday. The “iron collar” refers to the mark of a slave, whose chains keep them bonded to a master or mistress who legally “owns” them as property or chattel.