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.
Themes
Morality and Moral Codes
Zero lives by a strictmoral code that not only concerns himself but can be applied at least in part to his friend group and society as a whole. From the first scene in The Adding Machine, Rice begins to set up that code with information the audience can unpack from Mrs. Zero’s observations of her fellow community members and opinions of herself and her husband. Her friends are interested in romance but look down upon scandal and adultery. While violence is commonplace in the city, by the time films work their way to her part of town (i.e. the suburbs), they have been censored. Mrs. Zero is also incredibly concerned about appearing lazy toward her friends, and does not want her own husband to slack. Ambition is an important concept for Mrs. Zero, and while it is not central to Zero’s own moral code, its importance to her is of value to him when he enters his own workplace the next morning.
The reader or audience member will learn more about Zero’s moral code (in particular, its strict rules on adultery and sexuality) from Scene 2, in which Zero and 
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