2. How do the themes in Treadwell's Machinal relate to challenges for women during her time?

George wants to marry Helen. George makes Helen’s skin crawl when she thinks about him touching her. Helen marries George, has a baby she doesn’t want and a one-night stand which leads to her murdering George. Helen is not a happy camper because she has an independent streak within her that is completely at odds with expectations for women. George, on the other hand, grows up embracing the expectations of men and pursue a wife, children, vacations and wealth with abandon. The same rules of physics applies to expectations of both men and women, but the rules of the game do not. Both George and Helen submit to the same forces of societal conventions and both give in to that equity of pressure, but one winds up murdered and the other executed so even though George was happy to submit and Helen was not, the question at the end becomes what purpose do those forces of pressure to conform serve?