51 pages • 1 hour read
The Machine Stops
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Themes
Human Advancement
The concept of advancement in the story centers on distance from the natural world and reliance on the human body. The people become brains within an underground network. Any bodily dependence is an inconvenience, which highlights the predicament of mortality. The best and brightest minds of humanity are constantly removed from the world unexpectedly by mundane accidents of the body. Although this society has not managed to defeat mortality entirely, it fosters the illusion of power by dictating birth, controlling death through euthanasia, and removing as many dangerous external elements as possible. A carefully-bred person who never leaves their room is unlikely to die in an accident, develop diseases through genetic or environmental factors, or experience violence. Additionally, scientists have mitigated natural disasters—managed to “harness Leviathan” (7)—either by eliminating their occurrence or creating impervious structures.
However, the story warns readers to beware reliance on manmade technology because man is flawed and structures fall. At the end of the story, the people are helpless. The hum of the Machine stops and thousands of people die instantly from shock. Those that survive die flailing in the dark, unable to help themselves and climb to the surface, where they would likely die anyway because they have become unable to breathe outside air. Scientific inquiry ended after experiments attempting to change the rotation of the earth caused accidents and disasters, and this led to the creation of an artificial world within a world that can be entirely controlled. The destruction of this artificial world results in the annihilation of humanity that lives in the Machine.
The Machine takes away touch and human interaction, replacing it with a poor facsimile through which a person cannot properly see another person’s face or expressions. Because Vashti does not leave her room, aside from the trip to see Kuno, this means that she rarely sees human facial expressions. The absurd emphasis on ideas—particularly abstract and impractical ideas—comments on the devaluing of physical labor that occurs in an elitist society. Those who dig ditches and build structures are necessary but relegated to the lower classes. Ideas that connect to the natural world, such as Kuno’s observation about the stars, are shunned as they might lead to curiosity and revolution. The story asks readers to consider the nature of human advancement beyond technological innovation.
Religion and Rules
When Kuno accuses Vashti of worshiping the Machine, Vashti becomes offended because religion is not a part of advanced society. However, she demonstrates reverence toward the Machine, uttering prayers and praises, kissing the Book, and professing faith. By the end of the story, as life becomes less predictable and more painful, the denizens of the Machine begin to worship openly. The people repeat the phrase printed in the Book, “The Machine is the friend of ideas, and the enemy of superstition: the Machine is omnipotent, eternal; blessed is the Machine” (19). By conditioning the people to believe that religion is anti-advancement, those who created the Machine manage to convince the people to practice religion unknowingly. If, as Karl Marx claimed, “Religion is the opiate of the masses,” the instillation of this religion convinces the people to trust the Machine entirely. The persistence of religion also suggests that the desire to trust a higher power is an innate human trait.
Throughout the story, there are many more implicit than explicit rules. Creating laws that prevent people from parenting their own children or traveling beyond the walls of the underground structure would seem draconian and undoubtedly lead to insurrection. Therefore, the Machine and the Central Committee encourage these practices rather than forcing them. Infants are sent to a public nursery and then shipped to the other side of the world as a young adult, so natural parenting becomes much more inconvenient compared to allowing the government to parent. Traveling to the surface requires a permit and special gear, so the people are conditioned to believe that the surface is unrefined and barbaric. Therefore, when rules are enacted, such as the ban on traveling to the surface, very few complain. When religious worship of the Machine becomes mandatory, the people have already been conditioned to see the Machine as a god.
The ultimate punishment for breaking these rules is ostracization from a society in which, ironically, everyone lives a highly separate existence. Homelessness, or eviction from society, equals death because the people have been conditioned to believe that they can survive only within those structures. This new Machine-based religion seems logical because it is centered on a tangible, manmade structure. However, blindly following means the death of critical thinking and curiosity. A person who is made Homeless loses the community that not only feeds and clothes them but also validates their stagnant life. The story warns readers to consider what a faith or deity asks of them and whether or not those demands are contrary to the nature of humanity and human existence.
The Study of History
Understanding the way societies have functioned in the past helps to inform the way society continues to function. Knowledge of history gives context to events in society that may seem irrational. In the story, history and the humanities are abstract concepts. People spend their days learning about temporally and spatially distant cultures but have no sense of connection to the world around them. These studies become an entertaining pastime, a novelty to fill the days of those who never leave their rooms. Forster comments on the myopia through which a specialization or obsession with a certain period can contradict the practical necessities of studying history, which require viewing a larger picture in order to understand the course of humanity. A broad understanding of history might have warned citizens that civilizations rise and fall, and that one should not rely entirely on social structures to survive.
This disconnect between the world and studying the world turns academia into an elitist leisure activity. When the Central Committee decides to stop allowing citizens to go to the surface, the lecturer explains to them that they do not need to know what really happened in history, but only how that history has been interpreted by the Machine. This erasure turns history into nothing but a group of stories. One notably absent history is that of the Machine and how all world nations and cultures merged into one society. A singular dominant nation means that one small group has ultimate and absolute power, which makes it impossible to challenge. But as the story shows, there is an ultimate truth beneath these social structures: the body of man as measure and the indomitability of the natural environment. As Kuno says of the hills of Wessex, “For though they sleep, they will never die” (15).
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By E. M. Forster
