'The Machine Stops' Discussion Questions
Name ____________________________
"The Machine Stops" by E. M. Forster Date: ____________________________
Summary of the Story
The story describes a world in which most of the human population has lost the ability to live on the surface of the Earth. Each individual now lives in isolation below ground in a standard 'cell', with all bodily and spiritual needs met by the omnipotent, global Machine. Travel is permitted but unpopular and rarely necessary. Communication is made via a kind of instant messaging/video conferencing machine with which people conduct their only activity: the sharing of ideas and what passes for knowledge.
The two main characters, Vashti and her son Kuno, live on opposite sides of the world. Vashti is content with her life, which, like most inhabitants of the world, she spends producing and endlessly discussing secondhand 'ideas'. Kuno, however, is a sensualist and a rebel. He persuades a reluctant Vashti to endure the journey (and the resultant unwelcome personal interaction) to his cell. There, he tells her of his disenchantment with the sanitised, mechanical world.
He confides to her that he has visited the surface of the Earth without permission and that he saw other humans living outside the world of the Machine. However, the Machine recaptured him, and he has been threatened with 'Homelessness', that is, expulsion from the underground environment and presumed death. Vashti, however, dismisses her son's concerns as dangerous madness and returns to her part of the world.
As time passes, and Vashti continues the routine of her daily life, there are two important developments. First, the life support apparatus required to visit the outer world is abolished. Most welcome this development, as they are skeptical and fearful of first-hand experience and of those who desire it. Secondly, a kind of religion is re-established, in which the Machine is the object of worship. People forget that humans created the Machine, and treat it as a mystical entity whose needs supersede their own.
Those who do not accept the deity of the Machine are viewed as 'unmechanical' and threatened with Homelessness. The Mending Apparatus—the system charged with repairing defects that appear in the Machine proper—has also failed by this time, but concerns about this are dismissed in the context of the supposed omnipotence of the Machine itself.
During this time, Kuno is transferred to a cell near Vashti's. He comes to believe that the Machine is breaking down, and tells her cryptically "The Machine stops." Vashti continues with her life, but eventually defects begin to appear in the Machine. At first, humans accept the deteriorations as the whim of the Machine, to which they are now wholly subservient, but the situation continues to deteriorate, as the knowledge of how to repair the Machine has been lost.
Finally, the Machine apocalyptically collapses, bringing 'civilisation' down with it. Kuno comes to Vashti's ruined cell. Before they perish, they realise that Man and his connection to the natural world are what truly matter, and that it will fall to the surface-dwellers who still exist to rebuild the human race and to prevent the mistake of the Machine from being repeated.
As you are reading, pay attention to any dystopian characteristics you see:
Dystopia definition: A futuristic, imagined universe in which oppressive societal control and the illusion of a perfect society are maintained through corporate, bureaucratic, technological, moral, or totalitarian control. Dystopias, through an exaggerated worst-case scenario, make a criticism about a current trend, societal norm, or political system.
Characteristics of a Dystopian Society
• Propaganda is used to control the citizens of society.
• Information, independent thought, and freedom are restricted.
• A figurehead or concept is worshipped by the citizens of the society.
• Citizens are perceived to be under constant surveillance.
• Citizens have a fear of the outside world.
• Citizens live in a dehumanized state.
• The natural world is banished and distrusted.
• Citizens conform to uniform expectations. Individuality and dissent are bad.
• The society is an illusion of a perfect utopian world.
Pg. 1-3
1. Why is Vashti irritated? How does this relate to our society?
2. How does Vashti communicate with others? How is this similar to today?
3. What does Vashti look like? Why do you think she looks like this?
4. What gives Kuno an idea?
5. Why is Vashti surprised that this gives Kuno an idea?
6. Describe the relationship between Kuno and Vashti – use two quotes to support your opinion.
7. What is the “imponderable bloom”? Is it important or, like Vashti thinks, unimportant?
Ponder means to think carefully. If something is imponderable it cannot be thought carefully about or conveyed through language. There is always something (the imponderable) that escapes thought and language.
Bloom is related to beauty, flourishing, thriving and health. To say that the bloom is taken off something means to say that the interest, enjoyment or desire for that thing has been dampened or removed. It has lost its luster, vitality and life.
Pg. 4-7
1. After talking to Kuno, “For a moment, Vashti felt lonely (pg. 3).” What comforts her? Are there any parallels with today you see?
2. Vashti cannot get an alternate size of bed because it would require vast alterations in the machine? How can this relate to our world?
3. What does Vashti’s ritual with the Book of the Machine remind you of?
4. Why is Vashti scared? What does this remind you of in our world?
5. What does the following passage mean? “Rapid intercourse, from which the previous civilization had hoped so much, had ended by defeating itself. What was the good of going to Pekin when it was just like Shrewsbury? Why return to Shrewsbury when it would all be like Pekin? Men seldom moved their bodies; all unrest was concentrated in the soul.”
6. Why did the dropping of the book disquiet all who were boarding the ship and why did no one pick it up?
7. Why do you think Vashti was so angry over not receiving the best cabin?
Pg. 8-11
1. What did the attendant do at the bottom of page 7 and top of page 8 that was ‘careless’? Why is this action described as ‘careless’?
2. What might this phrase mean: To “keep pace with the sun,” or even to outstrip it, had been the aim of the civilization preceding this (pg. 8).
3. What has happened to ‘common interests’? Give an example of common interests in the world today.
4. What does this passage mean?: The sun had conquered, yet it was the end of his spiritual dominion. Dawn, midday, twilight, the zodiacal path, touched neither men’s lives not their hearts, and science retreated into the ground, to concentrate herself upon problems that she was certain of solving.
5. Why do the mountains give Vashti no ideas?
6. Why do people repeat the phrase, “thanks to the Machine”? What is the author alluding to and why does he capitalize the Machine?
7. Why is it ironic that Vashti hides Greece behind a metal blind, saying “no ideas here”?
8. What is “Homelessness”?
9. Is it true, as Vashti says, that all “fear and superstition” have been “destroyed by the Machine?
10. How does this society view physical strength? Why might this be?
11. What does Kuno mean when he says that we lose a sense of ourselves when we lose our sense of space? (bottom of page 11)
Pg. 12-15
1. Kuno thinks that ‘man’ (in less sexist language, humans) is the measure? What does this mean and what does Vashti think is the measure or valuator of all things?
2. What might Kuno mean by saying that “the spirits of the dead comforted” him?
3. What might he mean by saying that he was comforting the unborn?
4. What does Kuno means when he says “we are too different, mother”?
5. What does Kuno mean when he says that “We only exist as the blood corpuscles that course through its arteries, and if it could work without us, it would let us die” (pg. 15). Can you think of any parallels in our society or that you have read in other books?
6. Where did Kuno go?
Pg. 16-19
1. After the machine’s mending apparatus began repairing the tunnel, what did Kuno fight with?
2. Why do you think the machine brought Kuno back?
3. Why does Kuno think that people can live on the surface of Earth and why does Vashti disagree? (bottom of page 17 and top of page 18)
4. Why do you think first-hand ideas are viewed negatively?
5. What were the two great changes that came into being after Vashti left Kuno? Why do you think they were brought in?
6. What is the author alluding to when he writes that some worshippers were impressed by the blue optic plates while others the book of the mending apparatus?
Pg. 20-23
1. What does the author mean when he writes that the machine was served with increased efficiency and decreased intelligence?
2. Why did Vashti ask for Euthanasia? Why would she think this was a good reason?
3. Why did the Machine refuse her request?
4. Why does Vashti not understand that the phrase that the Machine is stopping? Are there parallels with today?
5. What does Vashti do in response to the music breaking down? What is the result?
6. What is the effect when people learn that the mending apparatus is in need of repair? Are there parallels with today?
7. What does this phrase mean?: “If Eternity was stopping it would of course be set going shortly” (pg. 23)
8. Why do you think many died when silence came?
Pg. 24- 25
1. What does this phrase mean?: And behind all the uproar was silence — the silence which is the voice of the earth and of the generations who have gone.
2. What does it mean that humans had been strangled in garments they had made?
3. What does Kuno mean when he says that he and Vashti have “recaptured life”?
4. Why does the author write, “For a moment they saw the nations of the dead, and, before they joined them, scraps of the untainted sky”?
5. What are three “main ideas” this story gives you?
6. Why do you think the author chose a mother and son as characters?
7. What do you think of the narrator’s telling of the story? Is he or she neutral? Does he or she know everything about the story?
8 Is this a dystopian story? How do you know?
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