In our previous class, we discussed E.M. Forster’s “The Machines Stops” and I gave a lecture on SF working definitions and proto-SF. Write a summary of the reading and your notes so that you return to the text and your notes to help you remember this material. Copy-and-paste your summary into a comment made to this blog post.
Remember: If you miss a day and need notes from class, you should ask other students for a copy of their notes. Offering to exchange your own notes, or gifting pizza in exchange for notes will likely work in your favor. If you have questions about how to spell a name or what is an important date, refer to some of the links under Resources. And, of course, stop by my office hours to talk with me about the class or your final paper.
John Darius
ENG 2420
H.G. Wells “The Machine Stops” Summary:
“The Machine Stops,” is about a world in a dystopian future, where humans no longer live on the surface of earth, but instead underground. The humans can no longer live on surface of earth, because of the bad conditions. The air outside is no longer safe for any of the humans. People underground have created a new society. The new society has now changed as well. People are no longer communicating face to face. Instead human beings communicate through monitors. The interaction among people has gotten worse. People have now established a new type of religion where they now worship the machine, because most people now see the machine as something more than ordinary. It was wrong to think the opposite of most people that worshipped the machine. If human beings did not worship the machine, they would be labeled as homelessness. Being labeled homelessness would mean that the machine would send individuals outside where the air was poisonous.
The characters Vashti and her son Kuno lived in this future and faced the problems the machine has caused on society. Vashti and her son Kuno lived on opposite sides of the world. Vashti’s job was to create new ideas for society. Kuno was known to be a rebel. Kuno decides to visit the surface of the earth, without permission, and sees other human beings living on the surface of the earth. The machine captures Kuno for going to the surface without permission. Kuno eventually meets Vashti again and tells her that the machine is starting to break down. Throughout the story the machine does eventually break down and Vashti and Kuno begin to realize that interactions human beings have with one another is the most important thing, and they hope that the people who live on the surface of earth won’t make the same mistake the people who lived underground made.
I think the message E.M. Foster wanted people to know was that, if people continue to obsess over technology, it can possibly became a huge problem for humanity in the future. E.M. Foster wanted people to know that if we allow our world to be obsessed with technology, then the way we interact with each other will no longer be considered normal, and civilization can possibly end.
The story “The Machine Stops” written by E. M. Forster is about a dystopian world that is ruled by machines. It is mainly focused on Vashti and Kuno, mother and son. Each person lives in a separate cell that is honeycombed shape but isn’t considered a prison. Kuno tells his mother, Vashti, that he wants to go to the surface. A religion where the machine is the idol, has begun, everyone saw the machine as a sort of god. Later, Kuno gets transferred to a cell near his mother and tells her that there’s something wrong with the machine. The machine eventually breaks down, collapsing the underground civilization that everyone was living in.
In this class lecture, we went over and learned more details about the people we learned in the class lecture prior to this one. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, 1797-1851, wrote “Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus,” published in 1818, which was the start of SF genre. Edgar Allan Poe, 1809-1849, wrote stories involving mesmerism. Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1804-1864, wrote stories involving biology and chemistry. Jules Verne, 1828-1905, wrote “Extraordinary Voyages.” H.G. Wells, 1866-1946, wrote “The Time Machine” (1895), “The Island of Doctor Moreau” (1896), “The Invisible Man” (1897), “War of the Worlds” (1898), “Men in the Moon” (1901), and “A Modern Utopia” (1905). Dr. Ellis’ working definition of SF is “Narratives based on a technoscientific term, that sets it from the here and now.” The term “Science Fiction” is considered the good stuff, whereas “Sci-fi” is considered the bad stuff and isn’t really about SF. Fantasy is not SF, Dr. Ellis’ working definition of fantasy is “Are narratives devoid of the scientific term which necessitates the construction of a self-consistence world.” There are 2 levels of fantasy, high and low. High is considered better because lots of time was spent perfecting it, whereas low is sloppy and without planning ahead.
“The Machine Stops” is a short story by E. M. Forester where the world is depicted as a post-apocalyptic. Humans can no longer survive on the surface of the earth and now reside underground. The machine provides them with the basic needs to survive. The machine is god to most of the inhabitants and those who want more out of life a frowned upon. There is a cult atmosphere in the story as the story continues. For example, isolation plays a big role as we see how the inhabitants stay confined to their honeycombed “cells”. Also their interaction is done through video chatting and is rare done in person. In addition they walk around with a manual which they would kiss in a religious fashion. Vashti is the mother of Kuno and they are main characters of the story. What is most interesting about their relationship is that Vashti is in charge of spreading ideas in this world but as we discussed in class was that she has no genuine ideas for one reason. This is because all the information available come from within the machine so she basically regurgitates what was already said. To contrast this her son Kuno realizes the fault in the machine tries to share his ideas with his mother who disregards them. As the story continues the machine breaks down and she finally understands what her son was trying to tell her all along. Which is that technology is great up to a point but once we start neglecting the social interaction amongst ourselves and hide behind the technology he will lose the human side of ourselves.
In class we discuss the many differences between Science Fiction (SF), Sci-Fi, Skiffy, Fantasy and Science Fiction and Fantasy (SFF/ SF and F). There is a different grade of quality which separates them from each other. Science Fiction (SF) is a narrative based on the techno scientific term that sets it apart from “the here and now”. Sci-Fi is the mass produced low quality media or the junk. Skiffy was used in the 1970’s to differentiate between the high and low culture of SF. Fantasy narratives are devoid of Science Fiction and SFF is an combination of both Science fiction and Fantasy.
Mike Paar
After Class Summery
2/24/16
E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops,” is a novel about a society so ingrained with technology and seeking pleasure from it that they forgo physical human contact and interaction with the outside world. The story begins with a woman named Vashti, who lives out her life like all other humans, confined to a room capable of providing her with all of her needed sustenance to live out her life. Communication with other people is done entirely through video communication in what is refereed to as the “blue screen.” She is called on by her son Kuno to come visit him on the other side of the planet, suggesting, to Vashti’s horror, that he had been on the surface. Vashti makes the trip by airship even through the trip and the idea of being around other people revolts her.
Upon reaching her sons cell in the northern hemisphere, Kuno tells Vashti of his recent trip on visiting the surface of the planet. The effort to reach it was physically demanding, especially considering physical activity is frowned upon by society. But he felt compelled to make the effort, as he believed he was being called upon by the people living on the outside world to reach them. After making it to the surface and exploring the landscape, he was apprehended by the machine and dragged back to his cell where he was presently threatened with “homelessness,” or expulsion from society to live on the surface.
Kuno’s escapades brought about a rise in the machine’s authority to the people. Travel to the surface was entirely banned, even for those who had permission. Secondly, the machine was now to be regarded as a god, suggesting that people now believed that they were brought about by the machine rather than the machine was created by humans. In time the machine begins to breakdown, with certain services no longer being available. But people with their absolute faith in the machine, saw little problem with it, as they believed that the machines would be fixed in time and life would continue. In the end, the machine stops, disrupting all life entirely. People were unable to comprehend life without the machine and plead to it for salvation. Vashti in the chaos is visited by Kuno as he offers to introduce her to her new life on the surface.
The lecture today continued mainly where we left off with discussing the early writers of the science fiction genre. Mostly focusing on the works of H.G. Wells and his collection of writings throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It also delved into the classifications of different kinds of science fiction, largely differentiating between high culture science fiction and low culture science fiction, also popularly called simply “sci-fi,” a buzzword popularized to drive sales of the pulp science fiction novels of the mid 20th century.
Shana Butiku
This story is about a world where people are forced, by a change in the atmosphere, down underground, inside a man made machine with honeycomb shaped rooms. We are introduced to the woman Vashti who gets a call from her son, Kuno, who she really does not know but expresses that all her children were special. They elaborate a bit on the way child birth works where you can visit the kids for a short time, but after that the “parents” if you can call them that, aren’t required to stay in their child’s life.
So her son tells her about an idea he’s formed and asks her to visit. She says no because these people are born and live isolated in their mechanical rooms and do not like the presence of other people. So he gets mad and hangs up and she holds a conference on music.
Then they describe her end of the day habits though there is not truly a day and night system she mentions isolating herself which seems to be a process by the machine where no one can contact you.
Vashti also thinks about her bed and its one of the few real traces of the idea of loneliness besides the first time her son hangs up on her. She feels the bed is too big allowing the reader to imagine a double bed rather than a single. Vashti takes some comfort in the manual of the machine kissing it and almost praying to it. Vashti ends up going to see her son via airship after some lies about being sick and he reveals he’s been threatened with being left on Earth’s surface to die, because he went to Earths surface without permission and through an exit he created. Vashti is astonished but asks to hear the story and he explains what happened, he’s pardoned and moved from the Northern to the Southern hemisphere. Then everything starts falling apart. The music breaks, Vashti’s son calls her and tells her the machine would stop working and she refuses to understand. Denies any such thing can happen. Then it gets worse the water stinks, the food is spoiled, the mending apparatus which fixes all things breaks. The air goes bad and anything that can break does break. All of this they forgive. Then the machine stops and people die from the lack of sound. and people open their doors go out into the hall and greet one another with anger and the the machine collapses.
In class we created a timeline, mentioned more of H.G. Wells works, talked about Poe and mesmerism. We talked about the origin of the word Sci-Fi and how its used for low quality B movies that were just to make money. We talked about Fantasy as a genre and Skiffy. We also went over the professors definition of SF.
The Machine Stops by E.M Forster is a story about a dystopian future where humanity has lost nearly all of its forms of interaction with one another with an over reliance on the machine (technology). Basically the earths surface has become uninhabitable for people in this future and are watched and cared for by the technology they have created. Despite this though humanity has forgotten that they themselves created this technology and now see it as their god. The story revolves around a women named Vashti and her son Kuno whos relationship is a out of the ordinary. They live on opposite ends of the world and communicate only through some kind of video communication. As the story progresses the machine deteriorates and the society it was to keep alive falls. It was interesting to see the origins of the matrix within this story. In both stories technology has become the necessary component to be alive with no room for human nature. This theme shows the possible horrors of what the over reliance on technology could bring to the world. And despite this possible mistake humanity will repeat it just like it always has throughout history. During the class a timeline for SF was created stemming from Frankenstein to a modern utopia. We discussed of sc-fi is not science fiction and is considered low culture. A more respectable way of calling it is speculative fiction. Another genre in science fiction is science fiction and fantasy. Finally we talked a bit about a technocrat, which is someone who thinks science can save humanity without thinking of the consequences.
In the story, “The Machine” By E.M Foster shows how technology started to contribute to society and it fulfilled human needs machine and even controlled people’s thoughts. Finally, “The Machine” became a life, religion, law, and government to people. The mother, Vashti, does her everything with the machine. She listens to music through the machine, not going outside of her place which reduced the human interaction. The reader can observe from the text that Vashti is worshiping the machine. She thinks the book as a guide of life and keeps the rituals in the routine. Even her son says that she is worshiping the machine; she is not admitting the fact. She emphasizes the important of the Book, saying “all the fear and the superstition that existed once have been destroyed by the Machine… The Book says so.” She has given her life over to the schedule and system of the machine which responds to her needs physically and systematically. She talks like that the machine is godly existence. Vishti’s son name is Kuno, always questioned about the existence of the machine. He was not happy at all about isolations that are happening because of technology. He alternatively seeks for real humanity among unified society. Eventually, while searching for freedom, hoping the machine stops, he ends up dying. At the end of the story, though Kuno and his mother died, ‘the whole city was broken like a honeycomb.’
Yet technology does not control entirely in our society, its parts in our life are getting bigger and bigger. People are more likely to rely on technology rather than following old methods. If we continually and gradually are dependent to technology, our society probably ends up like the story of “The Machine Stops.” We, our society should be aware of E.M Forster’s predictions and warnings; the machine takes over humanity.
In today’s lecture we talked about some of the nobles by H.G. Wells. In 1895 his first noble was “Time Machine” it was about super power and all natural element. But it didn’t involve any science. Next year in 1896 he wrote another noble name “Island Doctor Moreaw” it was connect to Frankenstein but he wrote about animals transforming not like human transforming in Frankenstein. So he was quite famous in that time, in 1897 he wrote another noble name “Invisible Man”. Basically its show that scientist used Huber’s to human to make them invisible. Lastly he later in 19th century he wrote “The War of the World”, “The First Man of the Moon”, “Modern Utopia” etc.
H.G. Wells “The Machine Stops” is a short story where the human race is located and live on an highly tech advanced future airship below the earth’ s crust; where there ’s a machine that is used to satisfy all the needs and wants for mankind such as technological buttons for food, warm and cold showers/baths, music, clothing, and communication which seems great. Though it turns out to be that the machine does more than what it provides for humans; it takes away the freedom of choice do tasks themselves on daily basis and human interaction with one another is no more or at least less especially with the mother and son of the story Kuno. The story is a dystopia; a society that’s not so perfect He wants to explore the outside surface of earth and he does; but he finds out other humans are living there and the stories it being unbearable to breath is untrue and that the tale or soon to be prophecy that one day the machine will fail and the human race underground will die in the end does comes true and him and his mother both die as the machine airship crashes and explodes in the end hanging on each other as they talk about what went wrong; and what went wrong is that Humanity reliance on too much technology as a turns to science as a salvation as a will lead to a society where there’s no change of survival and compare to today society we as humans relay on tech too much and to show it they have movies like The Matrix Series , Ironman 3 , some of Doctor Who episodes , and 100th TV Series.
After Class Summary
February 24th , 2016
The story “The Machine Stops” written by E. M. Forster, is about a earth in the future, where humans no longer live on the surface, but instead underground, because of the harsh conditions. The underground society of humans worship machines, it became the new religion. The machine would decide what would go, and what wouldn’t. Human’s who would not worship the machine were labeled as “homelessness”, and would be sent to the surface of the earth, where conditions were unlivable. The story’s main characters are Kuno and his mother, Vashti. Vashti job in the society was to spread ideas in the underground world, all the information that was available came from the machine, so she was just spearding the machines ideas. Kuno is more like the rebel of the religion, he realizes the fault in the machine, and share his ideas with his mother and others, but they didn’t want to listen to him. Near the end of the story the machine breaks down, and the under ground society collapses.
In class we made a time line again, about novels that lead to the genre of Science Fiction and important authors ; Frankenstein (1818 – originated from Edgar Allan Poe) , Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly (1797-1851) , Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) , Jules Verne (1828-1905) , Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) was an outstanding author he had a string of amazing novels back to back ; The Time Machine (1895) , The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896) , The Invisible Man (1897) , The War of the Worlds (1898) , The First Men in the Moon (1901) , A Modern Utopia (1905). We also spoke about why Science Fiction is good stuff , with high culture, and Sci-Fi is bad stuff, with low culture.
Nurul Alam
“The Machine Stops”, starts in a room, which at first sounds like a jail cell or a room in an asylum, that provides Vashti with anything she desired. The walls are white with a chair in the middle. She gives lectures on music from this room. Her son, Kuno, calls on Vashti. He asks her to come visit him because he is ill. I believe she is extremely complacent and comfortable that she denies his request. The Machine has allowed for not to leave this room for long periods of time. After some dialogue and manipulation she agrees to this visit. On the trip from the underground to the upper level of the planet, Vashti has encounters with people. The most significant would be when she tried to help someone that had tripped and fallen. She extended her hand out but the individual retracted her had a look at her in disgust. Once she had reached the upper level she comes in contact with Kuno. I did not get that feeling when a mother sees her son for the first time in a long time. She was a bit cold and argumentative when discussing The Machine. She also carried The Book, which was the manual on how to work The Machine, like a bible. Kuno explained to her his concerns about the current situation. Where people were regurgitating what was “taught” to them. No one had experienced anything first hand. Vashti was very appalled by her son, even shameful. He states to her “the Machine will stop”. She returns to her room infuriated because she thought how could the Machine stop. As time went on people were designated to do specific jobs for the Machine. As a result, knowledge deceased and this affected the Machine. The Machine soon deteriorated and stopped. People died due to “the stop” because they did not know what to do in that situation. The only people that survived were the “homeless”. These were people that live outside of the machine.
I thought this was a great depiction of a future lead by technology or even dictatorship. I felt like weeding out the older generation with possibly having original thought by casting them underground added to the plot. Being able to gather your own thought and able to express it in public is vital to individuals.
E. M. Foster’s, “The Machine Stop” is about a future dystopia where the earth’s surface has become very uninhabitable. Due to this the humans of the earth must live underground, where their way of life is dependent on a Machine, which practically does everything for them.
The story is centered on a woman named Vashti and her son Kuno. Vashti living her days on the dependency of the Machine, like other humans of the earth, receives a call, one day, from her son Kuno, asking her to visit him and he doesn’t tell her why. Vashti feeling the request to be a bit strange, refuses to visit him. Kuno pushing the urgency of her visit to him convinces Vashti to come. She flies to him on an airship and tries to keep to her cabin and avoid going outside.
When she arrives to Kuno’s room, he tells her he couldn’t relay the reason for her visit over the Machine’s com system because he had done something against the Machines rules, that can be punished by homelessness, which is pretty much death sentence, where you would have to go to the earth’s surface. After this Kuno begins telling Vashti a story about how he found an exist to the earths surface and while on his way there he is inflicted with many new sensations that are completely new to him. He then realizes how the human race has gone wrong and he doesn’t want to go back. But the Machine finds him and takes him back underground. While Kuno is about to be taken underground he spots a person in the bushes near the exist he had found.
After hearing Kuno’s story, Vashti feel disgusted at Kuno’s defiance towards the Machine, where he then tells her she worships the Machine. Vashti furious at Kuno, leaves and heads goes back to home where she goes back to her daily life. Soon after the basic functions of the Machine begins to break down. Kuno sends Vashti an encrypted message, indicating the Machine stops, still feeling angry at Kuno, Vashti ignores Kuno’s message. Later the Machine start to stop working and people begin to die. Out of all the chaos that ensues, Vashti finds Kuno, where he tells her they were doomed but the human race still has hope yet.
In the class lecture we continued to discuss the early writer of Science Fiction. We focused a lot on H.G. Well and Edgar Allan’s Poe Mesmerism. We discussed sci- fi and its relation to B quality movies and how they want to make money. We talked about Fantasy as a genre and Skiffy.
“The Machine Stops” by E.M. Forster begins with an elderly female human named Vashti. Vashti is described as a lump of flesh that is as pale as a fungus. Humans can no longer live on the surface of the planet due to bad conditions. As a result humanity has moved underground to live with a machine built by great men to support the needs of the population. Kuno, Vashti’s son journeys to the surface and finds people on the surface. Fearing retaliation from the machine, Kuno requests for his mother to meet in person to discuss his findings. However over time humanity has grown too dependent on the machine and started to worship it. With no one to maintain the machine, it breaks down eventually. This spells the demise of Vashti’s people. Vashti and Kuno realized that it is the surface dwellers that will carry the torch of humanity.
The lecture discussed how “The Machine Stops” was a retort by E.M. Forster against H.G. Wells’ works. The people reading “The Machine Stops” are clearly personified by the surface dwellers. Forster intends for the readers to rely less on machine and more on men. For it is men that maintains the machine. I wonder if the bad conditions mentioned was the beginning of environmental consideration, a critique against pollution of nature. As an Englishman Forster might have known about the “Great Stink” that occurred in London, when the Thames river was badly polluted. The book The Neuromancer was mentioned in the lecture as well. Though I have not read it, I’ve came across the title in my studies in virtual reality. I was also surprised that it inspired the movie The Matrix.
Definitions of Science Fiction was discussed and contrasted to other types of work. SF itself has a high and low culture. SF is not the same as sci-fi, nor is it the same as “skiffy”. The SF that will be discussed in the lecture would be of high culture.
“The Machine Stops” by H.G. Wells, is a futuristic science fiction story of the human race. They live underground in a “dystopian future” where the surface of the Earth has become uninhabitable without proper gear, and the lives of the human race have revolved around this Machine, much like seeing this machine through a new religion (though the machine was made by men). I saw this story as a possible and scary near future for the human race. Humans no longer speak face to face as much, rather they use a means of communication much like our modern day FaceTime. Thus, this damages the human connection and interaction.
We see Vashti (main character) and her relationship with her son Kuno. It was very shocking to me to see as a mother, she really did not show much affection towards her son. She was focused on creating ideas for their modern society (to the reader, a future society). Kuno wanted her to visit him; he wanted to visit the surface of the Earth, and unlike his mother, he does not see the Machine as something to be worshiped, rather another invention of man. Vashti does not want to go, ultimately getting irritated in almost the whole novel. We see how lonely Vashti gets, which we can assume is how the rest of society feels. We see the rooms the people stay in are isolated (even having an isolation setting) with a bunch of switches inside to suit that person’s needs.
Kuno goes out to the surface of the Earth, and the machine catches him and brings him coincidently closer to his mother. He explains that something is wrong with the machine, which later we see that the machine breaks down. What struck me is how these people idolized the machine like a god, crying when the machine breaks down.
Taking from the notes from class, I can see this story being a part of speculative fiction. Reading it, I got the sense of this story being a near future story. We already have technologies that allow us to talk to one another from miles away. Facetime allows us to look at each other and talk to each other on a screen even from miles away. We as a species idolize technology: everywhere you look, people are staring at their phones or listening to music or using their ipads, I am victim of this technological age as well. Not saying technology is a bad thing, but I believe through my own observations that we have become obsessed with technology, much like the societies in the story idolize the Machine and what it can do for them. Once the machine is gone, people cry and are sad. If technology suddenly crashed or was destroyed (all technology), people would have a big problem with that. Another point, the human race today is destroying the earth with pollution. In the story, the Earth has become uninhabitable, and society has gone underground to live. There are those who live on the surface of the Earth, but most people need gear in order to survive.
This story also falls into the definition of Science Fiction from the lecture: narratives based on a techno-scientific turn that sets it apart from the here and now. Although the story may possibly be a near future society for us, it also sets apart from the modern world. The societies live underground, unable to live on the surface of the Earth without proper gear. We have not yet reached that stage yet, along with building a God-like machine and futuristic rooms as such.
The short story, “The Machine Stops” by E.M Foster is about a world where a machine created by humans makes life “perfect” for all that live within it. All residents are isolated in cells or cubicles and the machine caters to their every whim. One of the main characters, Vashti, is completely in love with the machine. She goes so far as to worship it. As amazing as it may sound do have everything you want when you want it, there are an enormous amount of drawbacks that are depicted in the story. One of the drawbacks is absolutely everyone is isolated. Everyone talks to each other from what sounds like a disc or screen. Everyone is also underground and not allowed to explore the world above them. Vashti’s son, Kuno, tells a tale of how he escaped the Machine and went to the outside world to look at the stars. This is a social taboo in this world as no one is allowed to leave the Machine. In fact, much like the birth of a child in Sparta, if a child is born in the Machine and they look as if to be a strong baby, they are killed because the Council of the Machine believes that people who are strong will want to go outside and swim in rivers and swing on trees. No one thinks for himself or herself. Professor Ellis said it best when he stated, “ The same information is regurgitated amongst all the people.” Nothing new is discovered (as far as the Machine permits) and people learn the same things over and over again. It is almost like mind control. When Vashti leaves the Machine to visit her son, she experiences being touched by another person for the first time and she is appalled. When she meets other people, the converse to one another about how great the Machine is and how grateful they are for the existence of the Machine. There is even a book they carry around that is similar to the Bible about the Machine. It sounds like a cult. In one part of the story, Vashti says that there is no more religion, but she and many of the people she meets worship the Machine as if it was a god.
Kuno also plays a big part in the story, as he represents the human ambition and curiosity. As stated earlier, he escapes the Machine to see what the world above is like. Kuno often asks his mother to visit him but she is so engrossed by the Machine that she doesn’t want to see her own son. Kuno eventually gives her and ultimatum stating that if she wants him to talk to her, she has to see him in person. This brings Vashti out of her comfort zone and begins to show the reader what problems lay in the seams of this seemingly perfect world.
I enjoyed reading this story very much. I think I can sympathize for Vashti because I too like to stay in my room and play games or sleep. Although, I also appreciate Kuno’s curiosity to know what is going on outside of the Machine. I think if I live in this world, I would eventually long to know what is going on, on the surface of the planet. I love when authors paint a clear description of the world and what it is like to live in that world. It definitely grabs me and keeps me interested. I hope future authors we encounter can grab my attention such as E.M. Foster.
The short story, “The Machine Stops” by E.M Foster is about a world in were machines were the center of humanity and people couldn’t leave without one anymore. Humanity was running around this machines, they were controlling people mind and actions as well. In the story one of the characters Vashti, she turn her life all toward the machine she will not go out of her room for nothing. The machine has as it program to fill fit all humans necessaries or any fix any problem they had. Vashti had a son and he was out of the ship of rooms in were people was lucked up thanks to this machines that control every bodies minds, he argue with his mother why she didn’t want to go out, or even talk to him for more than 5min, because all she wants to do was play around with the computer or machine she had for her. She said all she needs she had there thanks to that machine, but his son told her that she better go and visit him until them they won’t talk to each other. What he did was make her pick a choice between him and her computer. At the end she pick him and she fly to the place her son was, during the trip she realize what she have left outside her room and just for being more comfortable and relax.
ENG 2420
Kevin A. Gaul
05/19/16
After-Class Summary: The Machine Stops
“The Machine Stops”, written by British Novelist Edward Morgan Forster, is the story of a civilization of humans who live underground under the protection of the Machine, an underground fully automated, self-sustaining shelter that protects and provides from its human inhabitants. The surface of the world is apparently unfit for humans to survive, but one of the main characters of the story, Kuno, has seen humans on the surface during one of his escapes, before being recaptured by the Machine and threatened with homelessness, which is considered a punishment by the Machine’s standard since exile to the surface means death despite Kuno claiming to be able to survive on the surface without the use of a breathing device. His mother, Vashti, is completely satisfied with her life under the Machine, unlike Kuno, who wishes for a life outside the Machine. The inhabitants are able to communicate with each other without having to leave their holding cells, and the Machine is worshiped by the inhabitants, having no memory that humans have created the very Machine they worship. Eventually, Kuno is moved to a cell near his mother and warns her that the Machine is starting to malfunction, but Vashti dismisses her son’s warnings and continues with her life. Eventually, features of the Machine stop working, although everyone pays it no mind and assume that it’s at the will of the Machine, and then the Machine starts to self-destruct. Since no one knows how to repair the machine as the instructions were lost, the machine is destroyed, along with everyone who inhabited it.
Our lecture on 02/24/16 was about the early SF time line, from Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley to H.G. Wells, whose stories include “The Time Machine”, “The War of the Worlds”, “The Invisible Man”, amongst others. We also talked about the difference between Science Fiction and Sci-Fi, whereas the former is narratives based on a techno-scientific turn that sets it apart from the Here and Now, while the latter is a 20th century term for low grade B-movies and comic books which uses scientific elements without explaining how and why they work.