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dannikinetic 's review for:
The Machine Stops
by E.M. Forster
The story has three parts. The first introduces you to their world. The second shows the desolation outside and how uninhabitable the world is. The third appropriately titled The Homeless is when the machine fails, and everyone dies. In The Machine Stops, I felt worried and concerned for the people who lived their lives depending on a machine and a book that is used to control their area of the machine and gives them everything they need. I find it funny the way people in the story revere the book as some do the holy bible. The author alludes to the importance of the machine and the committee that controls it by using capitalization for their names. Even before the Machine started to fail I was sad they never were able to experience nature. I was confused that Vashti, the main character, kept claiming there were no ideas that she could gain from looking at the sky or the mountains when so much inspiration has been drawn from them in the past. There is a change in the society where they no longer wish to go outside. They are content only living within the machine and begin to worship the machine itself. I believe this could represent people becoming too dependant upon the government to take care of them and becoming unable to see the failures within the system. Towards the end of the story, their “utopian” society turns dystopian and people die in a horrible death. People refused to question the Machine or anything that could go wrong Kuno was the only one who noticed the machine was breaking down. I am amazed it took so long before others realized something was wrong. I am reminded of a frog being slowly boiled in hot water and when it happens slowly enough it doesn’t notice it is dying. At least at the end the son Kuno gets to have human contact with his mother as they die in each other’s arms. The part that stood out to me most was an instance at the end when they are trying to convince people that firsthand experience is bad and try to dissuade people from going above ground. No one has any personal experience anymore they just learn from others who have learned from others and no one has any true understanding of the world anymore, they just believe what they are told by others. My favorite quote from this story is “Seraphically free from taint of personality.” This two-line rhyme shows that individuality has been lost and everyone has become apart of the machine. When the machine stops so do they.