30 pages • 1 hour read
Elmer RiceThe Adding Machine
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1929A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Scene 5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Scene 5 Summary
Zero is contained within a cage, seated at a table, wearing prison garb and eating from a plate of ham and eggs. It appears he is on display for a group of young schoolchildren led by a guide, who introduces him as the “North American murderer.” The children take notes, while their caretakers converse with the guide. This is the day of Zero’s execution, and he has ordered eight courses of ham and eggs.
Once the crowd has left, Mrs. Zero enters in mourning clothes and lets herself into the cage. They speak matter-of-factly about the affairs of his death and how much money she has been spending. She has brought him another plate of ham and eggs, which she made herself; he eats the food with gusto. They agree they had a good life together. Zero enquires about a scrapbook he has asked Mrs. Zero to keep on his behalf with all of his appearances in the newspapers; he desires that she give the book to his assistant, Miss Devore, after his death. Mrs. Zero is against this notion, insisting she will pass it to her sister’s child. They fight, resulting in Mrs. Zero breaking his plate and running away. Finally, a man in silk pajamas and winged shoes arrives calling himself “the Fixer”; he lectures Zero on his mortality, then calls the guards. After a man with an axe gives him the nod, the Fixer leaves the cage, padlocking it before he exits the stage.
Scene 5 Analysis
Further expanding the morality tale at play, the setting of the zoo or museum –containing the “North American murderer” as a specimen to be ogled by children and explained by a tour guide–further develops Elmer Rice’s desire to expose the very worst of this system, and thus humanity. On the day of his execution, Zero is able to stomach nine courses of ham and eggs; he is unfazed by his position as a caged animal, something to be feared, ogled, and othered, and he shows no remorse toward facing the end of his life while in the middle of a terrible argument with his wife. In fact, he cares the most about appearing famous to a woman he worked with and berated openly for twenty-five years. Rice depicts a society that is so fully disconnected from the assertion or fulfilment of one’s desires it has collapsed to the point of being dysfunctional.
