Dystopia!!!

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This is my first experience reading about a dystopia and I must I say wow! It goes against human nature and everything it means to be a human! “The Machine Stops” was the name of the story we read this week. I say that dystopia goes against human nature because they shun at human to human contact! As human beings we are social animals, we love to be connected, to be in social groups, to touch to feel, to have emotions, and these concepts seem so foreign and so disgusting to them. “When Vashti swerved away from the sunbeams with a cry……. – she put out her hand to steady her. How dare you! exclaimed the passenger.  You forget yourself…….. People never touched one another. The custom had become obsolete…” ( Forester 8-9) The fact that the passenger, to me, sounded so disgusted because attendant touched her! Never mind she had to touch her to keep Vashti from falling! They rather let someone fall on the ground and possibly her themselves then to touch them, to me I find that incomprehensible! In this particular story, we see the protagonist Vashti, so depended on the machine. We soon find out that everyone in the world is depended on this machine, no one is self sufficient. As Human beings we are intellectual creatures, we crave knowledge, we like to explore the unknown, to make the impossible possible, in this story all of this disappears and everyone is solely depended on this machine. ” The man in front dropped his book……. if the book was dropped, the floor raised it mechanically……. They stopped- the thing was unforeseen – and the man, instead of picking up his property, felt the muscles of his arm to see how they failed him” ( Forster 7). They are so depended on this machine they can’t even do a single task like picking a book up off the floor. The simple act of a book dropping leaves them dumb founded. The fact that this man is in a public place and no one knows what to do, no one knows how to pick up a book, I find astonishing. Kuno, who is Vashti son and who I believe is the antagonist, he’s the only person we come in contact with in this story he knows this isn’t the way they should be living life. My favorite quote in this store comes from Kuno on page 15 he say “We created the machine, to do out will, but we cannot make it do our wills. It has robbed us of the sense of space and of the sense of touch, it has blurred every human relation and narrowed love to a carnal act”. This quote sums up the entire story for me. The built this machine to make their lives easier but now they have become so depended on this machine, the machine has all the power and they are just mindless souls, and the only act they have on their own is breathing! They aren’t even allowed to have kids without permission. They can’t even choose to live where they want. Everything is controlled by this machine! The machine has absolute control, and because Kuno dares to think for himself, dares to explore the outside world, dares to go against the status quo, he’s threatened with homelessness. People like Kuno threaten the machine and he must be kept under control and if he can’t be then he must destroyed. I like his character because he goes against grain. He sees the machine for what it is and he doesn’t like it!

The Machine Stops, Reading Post

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I must say this was actually my favorite story so far. I think in part mostly because it’s something that you may even imagine happening to the world. We live in a world were technology is advancing quite rapidly every day. I compared the story a lot to our society today. The first part that caught my attention was “A faint blue light shot across it, darkening to purple, and presently she could see the image of her son,” (pg.1 Forster). This reminds me of the technology we have today in which we are allowed to FaceTime using our smartphones. We can speak to whoever we want to whenever using this technology which resembles the round plate Vashti uses in the story to communicate. Vashti would be considered the protagonist in this story.
In this story the machine is considered something that does everything for everyone. You have access to a whole bunch of buttons for almost everything you can possibly think of doing. In the story Vashtis son Kuno says “I believe that you pray to it when you are unhappy. Men made it do not forget that.” (Pg.2 Forster). Kuno believes his mom sees the machine as a god, someone she worships, and something that gives her happiness. As well as like in today’s world we have people that use their smartphones everyday and almost consider it their life. I compare it a little bit to religion where as some people consider the bible a holy book that they abide by and like in the story it says “By her side, on the little reading-desk, was a survival from the ages of litter — one book. This was the Book of the Machine.” (Pg.4 Forster). This book is considered something sacred in which Vashti believes in blindly. She considers this book the answer to all her questions. As some people would feel like with the bible.
I also compared the story to a book I’ve read in the past. It reminded me of The Giver when it said “Parents, duties of,” said the book of the Machine, ”cease at the moment of birth. P.422327483.” (Pg.6 Forster). It reminded of The Giver because it was a bit similar to the birth givers in the book. They were just there to give birth to the children so they never had to take any responsibility for the child because the child would be chosen a parent. One part I didn’t understand was in the story it says “When Vashti swerved away from the sunbeams with a cry, she behaved barbarically — she put out her hand to steady her.“How dare you!” exclaimed the passenger. “You forget yourself!” The woman was confused, and apologized for not having let her fall. People never touched one another. The custom had become obsolete, owing to the Machine.” (Pg 8-9 Forster). I wasn’t sure of who fell and who touched who. I know that no one is allowed to touch anybody but I was confused as to who the characters were.
I also didn’t understand to much of the end of the story. When the machine starts to end. In the story it says “They are hiding in the mist and the ferns until our civilization stops. To-day they are the Homeless — to-morrow—” “Oh, to-morrow — some fool will start the Machine again, to-morrow.” “Never,” said Kuno, “never. Humanity has learnt its lesson.” (Pg 25 Forster). What I didn’t get was are there currently people living on earth. Did someone shut the machine off because if it states the someone has to turn it on then I’m guessing someone has to turn it off. It also states that humanity has learnt it’s lesson but aren’t all of those humans dying and if they are then who’s left to know this lesson. It was confusing towards the end but overall a good read. I definitely enjoyed it.

The Machine Stops

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This week we are reading the story called “The Machine Stops” by E.M. Forster. The first paragraph starts with a descriptive introduction to where we are within the story setting. Based on this paragraph along I get an image of a very gloomy room almost in a sense like a jail cell with no ventilation the way it was phrased was “there are no apertures for ventilation, yet the air is fresh. Then finally the main character is presented whom is Vashti.

What I got from the story was it took place within the future and everything is based on these machines that basically is almost a god. Their livelihood in even the way their families worked was based on them and the book. The machine guided them of how everything in the civilization to function. The machine basically took away all human feelings from the people. People were really allowed to even think fro themselves because even when they have a question they would have to look it up in the book. This book not only gave answers but also ordered them in how they should function.

Within this work everybody is also dependent on these machines almost like our current society today with computers but a worse obsession. Within our society today technology we use computers nonstop to the point some wouldn’t even walk out the door almost like the main character. She could never find the time to visit her son and she would just keep making up excuses.  She made it seem almost like an addition problem with denial of how obsessed she was. She would defend it when her son criticized it. The people within that civilization were very much alike when it came to the machine’s they depended everything on them basically the machines is the way to utopia. The machines gave orders and controlled how everything functions even things like if they could have children they need permission. To show the perfect world from how  their own earth compared to looked upon as unhappiness. It was seen as dark and ugly because they are humans that don’t use the machines.

Kuno on the other hand is a rebel that wants to break away from the machines he wants to feel more human to the point in which he travels to earth but is captured and threatened with homelessness by the machines. He wants to see how human live seeing the stars and breathe with his very own. He is the only one within the civilization that remembers that it was made by man compared to all that worships it.

 This story made me think really deeply on also how our society slowly also is dependent on machines. as much as easier it provides us it is taking us over. people cant live without their phones, computer. and even doing basic task no more due to the dependence as much as it is suppose to make our lives easier. I cant help to think that one day our society might just turn similar to the story. It perfectly displayed utopia of how happiness is viewed and everyone being the same.

Thoughts on “The Machine Stops”

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The concept for this story is very modern and similar to the things we’ve seen in movies that have or are soon to come out in theaters. The story captured me within the the first two pages. The author begins with painting a setting for the protagonist Vashti. The way this author did this was very interesting and felt very futuristic. Stuck with the theme/feel of the story very well. Continuing the story I felt more involved in this civilization and can picture the world perfectly, giving it color and characters along the way. We then become familiar with the “machine”, which is basically where they live. Everything revolves around this machine, it is their way of life. The machine provides the people with everything from the air they breathe to the lectures and materials they learn from. This machines is looked as a godly figure because of this, many examples of praise and ignorance to other possibilities of the “salvation” of this society against the “outer-world” as they called it. This machine was made by man but has now taken over every aspect of this civilization. The “outer-world” aka earth was now inhabitable and any new being was created inside this machine including children. It is explained that children are raised by their parents to a certain age and then are given their own rooms to live in. We then are introduced to Vashti’s son Kuno. Kuno I feel is a really important character more so then his mother. Through Kuno we find out what happened to earth and more on it’s current state. In conversation with his mother Kuno describes his own journey to earth through the darkness of this machine. Through this darkness he gets in touch with his true self and becomes human again. He finally feels pain, sees things on his own, and builds up physical and mental strength. At this point his character seems more realistic and easier for us to relate to, his story kick starts the utopia into a downward spiral and the machine is straying away from its “greatness”. It was upsetting that Vashti did not want to accept the fact that this machine was running their lives, and when Kuno was explaining his journey to her she was concentrated in how much of a disappointment he was. The machine slowly began to have problems, the people began to complain but it made no difference because the machine chose which complains were worth passing through to the “Central Committee”. Another very frustrating factor in this story. I then realized there was no escape from this machine. The people were so used to being fed false information and pressing a few buttons when they felt discomfort. They knew nothing of the real world or the world before theirs. They would not know how to survive outside of this machine. Realizing this, the story takes a turn for the worse. The machine breaks down completely and the people are exposed to a completely new atmosphere. They would scramble in terror and asked for euthanasia to get away from the pain but the machine would not respond. The only person that had experience on earth was Kuno and we later find out that the homeless which we were people the machine had expelled for disobedience and other punishments had made there own society outside the machine. This was their only hope to continue life.

Hello!

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Hi guys! I’m Rafal, or Raf for short. I was born and raised in Greenpoint Brooklyn, currently living out in Kew Gardens, and I’m currently studying Graphic arts and Advertisement. I hope to one day be working for a company that designs logos and graphics, preferably for clothing or video games. I’m a huge nerd at heart and have just recently began really embracing that side of me. I love to read, mostly sci-fi and fantasy books. I’m taking this course because it is required, but I do hope to learn a few things as I am trying to write a video game based web series as a fun little hobby and any information I can gain about how writers approach certain things will surely only help in the process. I’m very open to people so if you have any questions feel free to ask. I hope everyone enjoys and has a wonderful semester!

me

 

– Rafal Napierala

Introduction Blog Post

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Hi everyone, my name is Antonio Griffith and i am a upper junior at New York City College of Technology. My major is Graphic Design and fell in love with photography my first semester of college because of my photography class. In photography class we were required to buy a camera but it did not have to be expensive since their weren’t enough school cameras. Another reason we had to buy a camera was that we can be able to do homework because we can not carry school cameras off campus. I ended up buying a expensive camera and didn’t just use it for class but for personal usage as well. The first subject matter I focused on when I first got my camera were buildings then I moved onto random objects and then people. I was born and raised in Guyana then moved to New York City in April, 2003 at the age of 11. After coming to New York I stayed in a apartment building with my aunts and cousins until i got settle to move into a rented house with my mother and step father. I like to play basketball, eat a lot, make people laugh, take photographs, and go out on my spare time etc. I have one older brother who lives in Minnesota with his family and works as a coast guard in the military. Me and brother have different father and i so wish he lived in New York right now so i could see him more often.

 

Something that really interest me is photography and graphic design. My hobby in photography made me see art in a different way that i would have never see by creating graphics. I used to photograph buildings only then one day i got invited by my friend chris to an fashion event and from there on I started to photograph people who are dressed fashionable. My top two desires are for me to be a very well know graphic designer or well know photography that pays all his bills with what he love doing. During the summer of 2013 I did street style fashion photography focusing mostly in Soho, New York by simply asking random people in the street if i can photograph them because of their nice outfits I adore. I first started taking pictures of people more seriously in 2012 as well with the street style photographs. The way I approach someone to snap a photo is by saying “hey do u mind If i photograph you for my street style fashion blog”.

 

My weakness as a reader is that i cant comprehend articles that are too descriptive because i tend to focus so much on what they are describing and then forget what i read earlier in the passage. My strength as a reader i would say is that i can understand what the text is about unless it is not jumping back and forth to a different setting. My weakness as a writer is that I am not too good with switching up the beginning of a sentences because I tend to use the same words to start a sentence. I enjoying reading text I can understand what the story is about. If the story has difficult text I tend not to like the reading and is force to read it because I don’t understand a thing that is going on. My favorite type of reading will be something on sports, art, love stories, and comedy etc. What I enjoy about writing is when I do something I know by experience and I can explain to someone what happened but when i am writing an essay on a topic I am not interested or i have to research it then it is hard. My background with using technology is not perfect because I don’t know how to work every program in the world that is out but i can do the basics. I am not sure why I am taking this course but there are only two options, one is probably I need it or the other is if I sign up because I need the credits to be a full time student.

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas

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Le Guin has a similar patter for both “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas and “The Day Before the Revolution”. This pattern is very descriptive imagery. In Omelas the first paragraph is pure description of the setting. The author uses strong words to allow the reader to experience a more vivid imagery like “The rigging boats in harbor sparkle with flags”( paragraph 1). The way she uses sparkle gives the sentence a different feel. It seems more colorful, bright and full of life. The way she uses her words to describes the scenery is very interesting and also very easy to imagine. Le Guin also uses a lot of description in Revolution also for the setting. She describes the crowds and how the character struggles to get in between all the people “only the booming and the bodies pressed one behind the other”. In this sentence she doesn’t directly say it is crowded, but she gives more of a feeling especially when she says bodies pressed one behind the other. This gives a more vivid feeling and picture of whats happening.

Although her imagery is very vivid and very easy to view and feel, when she gets further into her story everything gets more complicated to understand. In the story Omelas i started to feel very confused after the narrator spoke about technology. i didn’t really understand what they meant with that line. Also the fact that they say “people of Omelas are happy people”(paragraph 4). But before they had mentioned in the beginning of paragraph three  ” we do not say the words of cheer much anymore”. It makes me loose the point of the story. How can you the people of Omelas me happy people but not be able to express it. Throughout the whole story their is a big message or idea of happiness being repeatedly mentioned. But it seems like the narrator has a hard time describing it because they keep contradicting themselves. The pattern and the way the story is told seems really confusing in general. The way they mention drooz, being a sort of drug. If this is such a happy place why do only some people take the drug? The story doesn’t really explain a real reason on why they take the drug. It only describes the feeling the drug gives, but not enough on why do they take the drug. The setting of the place seems bright enough so why do some like to take but not all?

From what i have read from Omelas, I get the feeling that the people from Omelas aren’t really happy people. They take drooz to feel brilliance to their minds and bodies. Also a very important change to the story when the narrator is speaking about the wonders of Omelas an its festival. Then unexpectedly a change of mood occurs when the child in the basement is described. Its like the ironic part of the story. Throughout the whole beginning of the story we hear of sparkles and happiness. But then more deep into their is this switch in which the child lives the complete opposite of happiness. What is the real message that Le Guin tries to send?

Le Guin Reading Post

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I believe that the story about Omelas was an interesting read. I did read through it twice to get a better understanding of it. I read through it and for some reason I felt that the author was describing a fantasy world that she made up. One of the sentences that really caught my attention was the one that says “But what else should there be?” (Pg3 Le Guin). This made me feel as if the author was creating this utopian world as she went on with the story. On page 2 Le Guin also says “For instance, how about technology?”. This makes me feel as if he’s deciding what kind of technology the people in Omelas would have. If he has the ability to decide then this must be some kind of world he’s creating or imagining.

After reading through pages five thought seven you learn about the child in the closet. That’s barely fed and has no clothes on. He’s clearly been in this closet for a long time as they say his belly protrudes. His belly can only protrude because he is so thin since he’s not being fed. They say his thighs and buttocks have sores because he’s been sitting in his own feces. It takes time for sores to form so he must have been sitting in his feces for a long time. I also wonder why they show the child to children who are between the ages of 8 and 12. Why don’t they wait till the children are adults. I mean how can a child understand why this child is in this closet and isnt being helped. They explain to the childten that the child can’t even be spoke to nicely. That is the agreement for the prosperity of Omelas. Then you realize they never mention who they have this agreement with. Religiously you think about the greater power being god. Then you wonder who exactly is this agreement with.

They explain that some people after seeing the child leave Omelas. the narrator says “But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas” (page 7 Le Guin). If they know where they are going then why don’t the other people who find this act of sacrificing one life for everyone else to be happy leave. Now the story ends but what happens with the child living in this condition, wouldn’t he die. If he dies then what do they just choose another child to put inside this closet. if that’s the case then it’s not like the narrator says “To exchange all the goodness and grace of every life I’m Omelas for that single,” (pg 6 Le Guin). It wouldn’t be a single life because if they’re constantly changing the child it’s not just one life they’re sacrificing. This is my analysis of this weird but interesting story.

Le Guin and her unusual stories.

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Reading this author way of writing stories was really difficult to understand at first. This author explains things in a way that isn’t easy to understand. She uses a variety of vocabulary words. When I first read these stories I felt discouraged to continue reading them because of the high use of vocabulary words, but once you start knowing what those words mean, the stories actually get really interesting. One of the stories Guin talks about is a woman, at first you can’t tell if she’s young or old, but we later find out shes an elderly woman. This author explained the things this elderly woman achieved while being young. The author tries to make us see from the elderly’s woman point of view, of what she sees, and  how she used to be someone really important and she started observing get life and seeing that she was in a prison. It wasn’t meant literally, but she felt like it was, she barely went outside to walk around. The reason she didn’t do this was because if a stroke she had had a while ago. After that she was traumatized to walk outdoors again. She then Noticed something had to changed, she wanted to go see what was outside. At the end I feel as if she was dying slowly, she didn’t want anyone to notice where she was, I felt rather sad what what this woman went through. At the end it left me thinking with what was left at the end : “the dry white flowers nodded and whispered in the open fields of evening. Seventy-two years and she had never had time to learn what they were called(Le Guin Pg 14)”. That phrase left me thinking of what is really important in life. I felt like she did without knowing what was really important in life, she missed the big details in her life, when she thought It wasn’t important.

The author Le Guin wrote another short story called “The Ones Who walk away from Omelas. This story starts with the author trying to explain to us of a “perfect world” with no problems of any kind. The story starts really good, demonstrating this great Utopia. Place. But later on in the Story, as I read, I started getting a bit confused, it explained that in order for this town to remind as the “perfect world” that it is , a child either boy or girl must be kept in some sort of captivity and live in very terrible conditions. This boy/girl is the reason why the Whole town can have this Happy, and perfect world . This scene or section of the story really bothered me. As I read this: “They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas…..They all know that it has to be there (Le Guin page 5)”. This section demonstrated they treat the child, that is in captivity as an Object! They don’t even treat it as a human being. This child would cry “help me!” And no one can help him. If they helped  him, their perfect world would be destroy. I see this as a sacrifice that has to be done in order for other to live in a perfect world. “the beauty of their city……….the health of their children…..even the abundance of their harvest and kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly on this child’s abominable misery (Le Guin page 5) .” So they consider this child that is treated badly as an Object, Yet, all Goodness depends upon he’s misery.

Le Guin

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The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas is written by Ursula Le Guin.  In this piece, Le Guin describes Omelas as a whole, a long with the Festival of Omelas and the people of Omelas.  Le Guin describes the Festival of Omelas to be such a vibrant event.  She goes on about how the festival contained “a shimmering of gong and tambourine,” dance and singing.  She even included the horses of Omelas who had manes that were “braided with streamers of silver, gold, and green.”  To me, it is significant that Le Guin described the horses.  Horses are usually a symbol of strength.  When I think of a horse I think of a horse running free.  When I think of the colors silver, gold and green, I think of good luck and high status.  While Le Guin continued on about how happy a place Omelas was with their “joyous clanging of bells,” all I could think about is the fact that Omelas may not be as happy as Le Guin explains it to be.

After all the talk about Omelas and its happiness, Le Guin introduces us to a child.  Neither  boy or girl was specified.  This child is held in the basement under “one of the most beautiful public buildings of Omelas.”  The child is held against its will.  Malnourished and abused physically  and mentally, the child cries out for help only until he can not cry out anymore and begins to “eeh-ahh.”

I find it weird that this boy is being trapped under Omelas in misery, while everyone else in Omelas gets to live in happiness.  Le Guin states that without the boy, Omelas wouldn’t be the “happy” place that it is.  If one was to set the boy free, Omelas loses its happiness.

I don’t understad how Le Guin can consider Omelas to be such a happy place when in actual reality, the fact that an entire city has to depend on the misery of one child is not happy at all.  It’s sad.  The people of Omelas are trapped behind their fear of unhappiness hoping that one day this boy can be set free.

The ones who walk away from Omelas are the happiest people in my eyes.  They walk away from the idea of living in such a “happy” place and decide to enter a place with less happiness.  Probably a place that does not have to depend on one boy to keep the whole city happy.  The place they travel to may not be as happy as Omelas, but the people who travel out of Omelas seem to be content with that.