- Nov 2016
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archive.ncsa.illinois.edu archive.ncsa.illinois.edu
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sky. The "Machine Stops" was first published in the Oxford and Cambridge Review in 1909 Copyright ©1947 E.M. Forster
good story : )
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Humanity has learnt its lesson."
But it hasn't
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"Oh, tomorrow - some fool will start the Machine again, tomorrow."
Now she is saying the Machine was created by a fool, only now because everyone is dying and so is she and her son.
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It was thus that she opened her prison
Only now when the Machine is gone is it a prison.
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People were crawling about, people were screaming, whimpering, gasping for breath, touching each other,
People can't even walk but they are forced to leave because they will die without the Machine. They're also touching each other for the first time and that in itself is anxiety producing.
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Then she broke down, for with the cessation of activity came an unexpected terror - silence. She had never known silence, and the coming of it nearly killed her - it did kill many thousands of people outright
She no longer hears the hum of the Machine and she states it kills people outright. Without the Machine, people die because they were so dependent.
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did she ever see his face again.
One of them dies im sure.
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"It will end in Homelessness," she said quietly. "I wish it would," retorted Kuno. "The Machine has been most merciful." "I prefer the mercy of God." "By that superstitious phrase, do you mean that you could live in the outer air?" "Yes." "Have you ever seen, round the vomitories, the bones of those who were extruded after the Great Rebellion?" "Yes." "Have you ever seen, round the vomitories, the bones of those who were extruded after the Great Rebellion?" "Yes." "They were left where they perished for our edification. A few crawled away, but they perished, too - who can doubt it? And so with the Homeless of our own day. The surface of the earth supports life no longer." "Indeed." "Ferns and a little grass may survive, but all higher forms have perished. Has any air-ship detected them?" "No." "Has any lecturer dealt with them?" "No." "Then why this obstinacy?" "Because I have seen them," he exploded.
He agrees with everything she questions only to tell her that there is indeed life where he went.
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when I thought I saw something dark move across the bottom of the dell, and vanish into the shaft.
His respirator D:
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She told him to continue.
She wants to hear more. It is her son after all, and I think her travelling to see him alone was enough to show that she is not completely controlled by the Machine - yet. Her opinion seemed concrete but she is becoming flexible. Why wouldn't she be; the information she is hearing that never been heard of before?
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new air
If the air isn't killing him, then the book is lying about the air killing them to make the people in this society not go against the Machine.
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The Machine hums! Did you know that? Its hum penetrates our blood, and may even guide our thoughts. Who knows! I was getting beyond its power.
It is not only mentally controlling them but physically it makes humans crave it.
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"The tunnels, of course, were lighted. Everything is light, artificial light; darkness is the exception. So when I saw a black gap in the tiles, I knew that it was an exception, and rejoiced. I put in my arm - I could put in no more at first - and waved it round and round in ecstasy. I loosened another tile, and put in my head, and shouted into the darkness: “I am coming, I shall do it yet,” and my voice reverberated down endless passages. I seemed to hear the spirits of those dead workmen who had returned each evening to the starlight and to their wives, and all the generations who had lived in the open air called back to me, “You will do it yet, you are coming,”
His want to get out is written to sound like he is a little bit crazy for wanting to get out, because the normal for this society is to be for the Machine.
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I took the lift to the next platform and paced that also, and so with each in turn, until I came to the topmost, above which begins the earth. All the platforms were exactly alike, and all that I gained by visiting them was to develop my sense of space and my muscles. I
By being adventurous, he built his strength.
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For Kuno was possessed of a certain physical strength.
This amazes me that it is extraordinary to have some form of strength. In this world, athletes are terminated at birth. Yet her son does have strength, so he must have worked on it his entire life.
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Homelessness
Modern day death sentence?
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"Cover the window, please. These mountains give me no ideas."
Anything unmechanical, or anti-Machine, is like modern day Old Latin. It is ancient to them. Even still, she in uninspired by the history she is seeing through the window.
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"O Machine!" she murmured
Everyone is comforted by this book, which is basically the Bible for the Machine.
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the first fellow creature she had seen face to face for months.
Human interaction is very limited, and fairly rare. But it was stated previously that she exchanges ideas with friends. Does she not do that face to face? Is this also over their "video chat?"
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assigned him a room
Why does the Machine separate family?.. Everyone is isolated?
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"Better." Then with irritation: "But why do you not come to me instead?" "Because I cannot leave this place." "Why?" "Because, any moment, something tremendous many happen." "Have you been on the surface of the earth yet?" "Not yet." "Then what is it?" "I will not tell you through the Machine." She resumed her life.
It is not that she does not want to see her son, but this conversation shows that she is simply afraid to leave. The paragraph above describing the tunnel and her apprehension about entering the tunnel showed that as well. There is also foreshadow; showing is going to happen to the Machine?
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She made the room dark and slept; she awoke and made the room light; she ate and exchanged ideas with her friends, and listened to music and attended lectures; she make the room dark and slept.
Basic routine. No growth.
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Might one tell her one"s own ideas?
She wants the Machine to think for her.
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"It is contrary to the spirit of the age," she asserted. "Do you mean by that, contrary to the Machine?"
This statement is very true to our generation of technology users, even though the circumstances are obviously very different. We make excuses to be so dependent on our cell phones and this woman is very dependent to the machine.
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The surface of the earth is only dust and mud, no life remains on it, and you would need a respirator, or the cold of the outer air would kill you. One dies immediately in the outer air."
The Earth described here is different than the liveable Earth we live in right now. This tells me that through the use of the Machine, the "outside" world is neglected and is therefore very dangerous because it is unkept.
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for the Machine did not transmit nuances of expression. It only gave a general idea of people - an idea that was good enough for all practical purposes,
The Machine creates a sort of veil for people to mask their emotions, which generalizes people and makes them less human and more machine. In this case it is described as practical (and the mother agrees) but the son wishes to see everything, the extreme goods and the bad. In human and human nature.
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"I dislike seeing the horrible brown earth, and the sea, and the stars when it is dark. I get no ideas in an air- ship."
She is living a different reality.
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"But I can see you!" she exclaimed. "What more do you want?"
Her son wants to see his mother face to face but in this future, humands are so reliant on the Machine that it is something not done often. She is exasperated she he even brought it up to him.
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pneumatic post?"
Is their their form of text messaging or media text?
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presently she could see the image of her son, who lived on the other side of the earth, and he could see her.
What they are describing in their time is some type of magical glowing orb, but really this is our modern day video chatting, like snapchat, facetime, or skype.
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THE MACHINE STOPS by E.M. Forster (1909)
I want to start with addressing the time this was written and also the title itself. With the little background information I have, the story is set in the future where everything around them is mechanical and little "human" work has to be done. Technology in their time was only just beginning to bloom, so for them to imagine it "stopping" already puts me in a place where I can only imagine what our generation thinks about futuristic tech, and if it were to ever happen, would be able to go on?
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- Sep 2016
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www.villagevoice.com www.villagevoice.com
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not the fictive trappings of voodoo and shapeshifting and wizardry, but the conflation of speech and act that's inevitable in any computer-mediated world
The internet has more power than some would think
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