So this was an interesting piece that had a very well used foreshadowing later within the text. I like the concept of the clockwork house that operated on its own which made me think about the previously inhabitants of said house. I began to feel as if the house was previously inhabited by robots as the house kept on a strict time frame for each event. “The five spots of paint—the man, the woman, the children, the ball—remained. The rest was a thin charcoaled layer.” (Pg. 1) This specific quote was useful in identifying the previous inhabitants and I personally enjoyed the comical Humor of including the ball as one of the prints in the wall.

I am personally in questioning to why the Dog is alive and why to describe it calming down they used the phrase “biting at its tail, spun in a frenzy, and died.” (Pg 2) in a story where the dog represents the last remaining survivor of the family (I assume as the house recognized the dog) I wonder why the author would use such a strong word to describe it calming down. I am in more surprise to why the clockwork house does not have a specific time to feed the dog who is attempting to claw his way into the kitchen for people food. I was wondering if the family had to manually feed the dog by themselves which I guess is fine as it helps show their not as useless as characters in a providing setting such as in the story “When The Machine Stops”

“if mankind perished utterly;”(pg. 3) So I don’t quite know if all of mankind has been wiped out as the book describes other living creatures such as birds and dogs roaming around but so far by the environment we get an idea that humans may be out of the picture. I do like how the house is kinda acts as a living being who makes choices and even yells as it is on fire. The fire was a very interesting part of the story as the fire also acted as a living creature “which, eaten by fire, started the stove working again,” (pg. 4) this being only one of the scenes where the fire is personified as living as it destroys the house and the house also acting as a living creature fights against it to no avail as its resources has gone dry. The machines fight nature as the humans are away and nature seems to win as machines in this novel require the watchful eyes of humans to keep it stocked.