The Machine Stops
The Machine Stops
The Machine Stops is a short science fiction story. It describes a world in which almost all humans have lost the ability to live on the surface of the Earth. Each individual lives in isolation in a 'cell', with all bodily and spiritual needs met by the omnipotent, global Machine. Most humans welcome this development, as they are skeptical and fearful of first-hand experience. People forget that humans created the Machine, and treat it as a mystical entity whose needs supersede their own. Those who do not accept the deity of the Machine are viewed as 'unmechanical' and are threatened with "Homelessness". Eventually, the Machine apocalyptically collapses, and the civilization of the Machine comes to an end. --Wikipedia
Book Excerpt
Inside, her anxiety increased. The arrangements were old-fashioned and rough. There was even a female attendant, to whom she would have to announce her wants during the voyage. Of course a revolving platform ran the length of the boat, but she was expected to walk from it to her cabin. Some cabins were better than others, and she did not get the best. She thought the attendant had been unfair, and spasms of rage shook her. The glass valves had closed, she could not go back. She saw, at the end of the vestibule, the lift in which she had ascended going quietly up and down, empty. Beneath those corridors of shining tiles were rooms, tier below tier, reaching far into the earth, and in each room there sat a human being, eating, or sleeping, or producing ideas. And buried deep in the hive was her own room. Vashti was afraid.
"O Machine!" she murmured, and caressed her Book, and was comforted.
Then the sides of the vestibule seemed to melt together, as do the passages that we see in dreams, the l
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Review of "The Machine Stops" by E. M. Forster
The Machine Stops is an important short story by E. M. Forster, published in 1909.
The Machine Stops is an influential work of Forster that the author has completed – in 1909. FA offers a setting where people stay underground and depend on a large mechanism for everything. One of the major focal points that are embodied in this work includes technology, more evidently, loneliness, and, most importantly, I need people.
The major protagonists in the story are Vucassert rendered as Vashti, and her son Kuno. Namely, Vashti, a lecturer who works via a screen all day, is confined to her tiny, one-room office. Even the protagonist of the story feels quite at ease with her life and orders even the food with the help of the Machine. While Kuno and screens. These cases make it easy for readers to realize what it is like for human beings to lack face-to-face interactions. This aspect of the story is so much of the recent powers and states of our own culture as his love interest is on the positive side of things, this existence stifers Kuno to the extreme. He wants to be a real man and wants to establish his interaction with the world different from the Machine.
Forster uses simple language and it is easy to follow regardless of the density of ideas posted by the author. He paints this picture of this future society: people live inside cells and all they get to see are technology and social networking has become dominant.
There is, you know, the Machine … This is one of the most original ideas of the whole story – really a very mechanistic one indeed. It represents dependence on gadgets up to the degree of departure of the human aspect. The Machine spoils one for everything else but it also offers solitude and alienation. Friedan subtly explains, using the example of Mrs. More, how over-dependence produces no live experiences at all. The people in this world have grown lazy and do not know how to make decisions, thus waiting for the Machine to feed them.
Kuno is Vashti’s foil character. This hero symbolizes the aspiration for human exploration and engagement with other people. When the protagonist declares his desire to move to the surface, the Overlord just dismisses him as a loud speech showing the fear and ignorance that society has become. Kuno’s battle is the freedom from the control of the Machine and the insistence on experience in a unique, diversely mediated way.
At this point of the story, the Machine starts to break down or show signs of failure. This has the general meaning of showing that a society too hooked to technology might find itself in a helpless position In this particular piece of work the meaning of the symbol will be analyzed in more detail. One day the Machine stops and people are powerless, society crumbles down. What Forster has been illustrating for the reader becomes apparent, his message on the repercussions of turning away from the very universe and interpersonal relations is made apparent. This ending is sad and Moving, it shows how vulnerable you can be if your existence is not anchored in reality.
”The Machine Stops” is a story of dystopia which makes it suitable for this generation, given the issues regarding the world’s reconciliation with technology. The novel by Forster opens the question of how much we rely on machines and what we can become deprived of. The story calls on the reader to look for his or her purpose in life, relationships with other people, and the world's beauty.
Thus, E. M. Forster’s The Machine Stops is a fascinating and enlightening piece of work, which should be read by anyone interested in the prospects of modern technological society. Using characters like Vashti and specially Kuno, Forster sheds some light on the sillage of human relations and the harm of loneliness. This short story should be mandatory reading for anyone who wants to contemplate the effects of the deployment of the new technology and or the definition of what it means to be human.
The Machine Stops is an important short story by E. M. Forster, published in 1909.
The Machine Stops is an influential work of Forster that the author has completed – in 1909. FA offers a setting where people stay underground and depend on a large mechanism for everything. One of the major focal points that are embodied in this work includes technology, more evidently, loneliness, and, most importantly, I need people.
The major protagonists in the story are Vucassert rendered as Vashti, and her son Kuno. Namely, Vashti, a lecturer who works via a screen all day, is confined to her tiny, one-room office. Even the protagonist of the story feels quite at ease with her life and orders even the food with the help of the Machine. While Kuno and screens. These cases make it easy for readers to realize what it is like for human beings to lack face-to-face interactions. This aspect of the story is so much of the recent powers and states of our own culture as his love interest is on the positive side of things, this existence stifers Kuno to the extreme. He wants to be a real man and wants to establish his interaction with the world different from the Machine.
Forster uses simple language and it is easy to follow regardless of the density of ideas posted by the author. He paints this picture of this future society: people live inside cells and all they get to see are technology and social networking has become dominant.
There is, you know, the Machine … This is one of the most original ideas of the whole story – really a very mechanistic one indeed. It represents dependence on gadgets up to the degree of departure of the human aspect. The Machine spoils one for everything else but it also offers solitude and alienation. Friedan subtly explains, using the example of Mrs. More, how over-dependence produces no live experiences at all. The people in this world have grown lazy and do not know how to make decisions, thus waiting for the Machine to feed them.
Kuno is Vashti’s foil character. This hero symbolizes the aspiration for human exploration and engagement with other people. When the protagonist declares his desire to move to the surface, the Overlord just dismisses him as a loud speech showing the fear and ignorance that society has become. Kuno’s battle is the freedom from the control of the Machine and the insistence on experience in a unique, diversely mediated way.
At this point of the story, the Machine starts to break down or show signs of failure. This has the general meaning of showing that a society too hooked to technology might find itself in a helpless position In this particular piece of work the meaning of the symbol will be analyzed in more detail. One day the Machine stops and people are powerless, society crumbles down. What Forster has been illustrating for the reader becomes apparent, his message on the repercussions of turning away from the very universe and interpersonal relations is made apparent. This ending is sad and Moving, it shows how vulnerable you can be if your existence is not anchored in reality.
”The Machine Stops” is a story of dystopia which makes it suitable for this generation, given the issues regarding the world’s reconciliation with technology. The novel by Forster opens the question of how much we rely on machines and what we can become deprived of. The story calls on the reader to look for his or her purpose in life, relationships with other people, and the world's beauty.
Thus, E. M. Forster’s The Machine Stops is a fascinating and enlightening piece of work, which should be read by anyone interested in the prospects of modern technological society. Using characters like Vashti and specially Kuno, Forster sheds some light on the sillage of human relations and the harm of loneliness. This short story should be mandatory reading for anyone who wants to contemplate the effects of the deployment of the new technology and or the definition of what it means to be human.
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The work is somewhat political but what is startling is the accuracy with which it describes the current trend towards social isolation. People seldom meet in person but instead communicate trivia by something resembling television and what we may call “social media”. Attention spans have dwindled and ten minutes is considered long for a lecture. The main character can only devote three to a conversation with her son. At that date, nobody had been forced to confront the reality of socialism and novels such as H. G. Wells's A Modern Utopia (1905) presented a glowing future of eugenics, state control, and ever more powerful technology. It took a bold genius to foresee the dystopia that was to engulf as much as forty percent of humanity. We now know that Forster's "Machine" - a command economy that crushes individual initiative - did not so much break down as never work in the first place, leading to horrors like genocidal famine wherever it's been attempted. As the shortcomings of the Machine become obvious, the people are bombarded with increasingly implausible data, presaging Soviet accounts of record harvests in 1922 Ukraine.
04/12/2021
A good short read. I first read it at school in the 1960’s and never forgot it. It is strangely apt in the time of COVID and although dystopian quite prophetic. No touching, isolation, communication only via virtual. I hate it that people veer away from others and some get really annoyed if you are too close even for a second. Just like Vashti.
03/25/2021
people who say it is like today must be living in an alternative universe, not like today, we don't live under the earth, we do communicate face to face in my age group, we don't all rely on computers nor believe in social media to live out our life.
05/30/2020
An interesting read very prophetic seeing it was written in 1909.A good compliment to the book is the concept album The Machine Stops by Hawkwind.
04/26/2016
I'm not as thrilled with the story as other readers. It's not bad - just too cerebral for me, and I dislike dreary endings.
This dystopian tale reveals a time when Man is totally dependent on Machine - and Machine fails. Predictable at a high level, but interesting tid-bits along the way.
This dystopian tale reveals a time when Man is totally dependent on Machine - and Machine fails. Predictable at a high level, but interesting tid-bits along the way.
01/13/2016
Read this book in the 1960\'s. No high tech then. It is not about machinery. The machine is just the vestal the writer uses to get across his excellent point.
This story is about believing what you are told and not looking for the truth. It is often attached to for your own good. People could live above ground. It fits today\'s America and giving up so much to the control of a few for our own good. We also see this theme in the book the Color Purple. The one sister accepted her fate when she could have lived all along in the house owned by her father. She never questioned what she was told. She accepted for her own good.
This story is about believing what you are told and not looking for the truth. It is often attached to for your own good. People could live above ground. It fits today\'s America and giving up so much to the control of a few for our own good. We also see this theme in the book the Color Purple. The one sister accepted her fate when she could have lived all along in the house owned by her father. She never questioned what she was told. She accepted for her own good.
06/07/2015
This tale has haunted me from the day I taught it to a student being home tutored in the 1980's. A chilling illustration of McLuhan's claim that "artists are the antennae of the future." In 1909 Forster was an oracle for the age of social media.
08/18/2013
Very thought-provoking for such a short story and highly-prophetic too, given the era in which it was written. I found the first chapter particularly clever and atmospheric.
The Kindle version I read was downloaded from ManyBooks, somehow 'Americanized' and contained at least 25 typos where the OCR had messed up. Ironically, I couldn't help thinking it was 'like a book but not quite a book' but instead just "good enough." 4/5
The Kindle version I read was downloaded from ManyBooks, somehow 'Americanized' and contained at least 25 typos where the OCR had messed up. Ironically, I couldn't help thinking it was 'like a book but not quite a book' but instead just "good enough." 4/5
07/23/2013
Forster's hundred year old predictions have largely come true. People are isolated from each other and communicate through screens, the world is despoiled, power supplies are centralized, watching reality is preferable to experiencing it, and everything filters through technology.
A well-written and convincing story, though the ending will probably never come to pass.
A well-written and convincing story, though the ending will probably never come to pass.
07/22/2013
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