The Machine Stops

Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1909

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Literary Devices

Point of View

Forster tells the story from Vashti’s perspective in a limited third-person point of view—the story is narrated from the outside looking in, referring to characters as he or she. It is limited because the narrator only knows Vashti’s inner thoughts and emotions. In “The Machine Stops,” this point of view is interesting because Vashti is both the protagonist and foil to Kuno as she does not change or grow over the course of the story. Kuno, who embarks on a vast journey of transformation, is on the periphery. Typically, the foil exists to contrast the protagonist and highlight the character's transformation. Vashti’s point of view describes the dystopian society from the inside, and how changes in the larger picture affect the daily lives of the average person rather than the extraordinary one. The most important moments in the story are revealed through secondhand storytelling as they are filtered through Vashti’s understanding.

Personification

The language in the story personifies the Machine and its different mechanisms, which means that the characters endow a nonhuman object with human qualities. Although Vashti notes that the Machine is manmade and therefore not an object for religion, she (and the others) pray to the Machine as if it has a will that might be influenced. The story is not clear as to whether the Machine has become sentient or if those who live within it have just come to see the Machine as a being. Kuno asserts that if the Machine could survive without humans, it would let the human race die. The Central Committee describes the failing Mending Apparatus as a benevolent entity that has earned their patience and needs time to heal.

These examples support the idea that technology is eventually regarded as a person worthy of empathy, love, and reverence. However, it appears that humans control the Machine's mechanisms. The story does not explicitly state that the Central or Mending Apparatus Committees are comprised of humans, but the lecturer who seems to speak for the Committee is either human or a convincing facsimile. By personifying the Machine and encouraging citizens to worship it, the Committee ensures unquestioning trust and compliance, which allows them to hide behind a seemingly infallible and impartial structure.

Paradox

Like most dystopian fiction, “The Machine Stops” centers on a paradox. Dystopian literature depicts an alternate, often futuristic society in which humanity has attempted to create a utopia, or a perfect society, but landed in the opposite civilization. The paradox lies in the treatment of technology, which is meant to advance humanity to the point of creating a better world. In the story, technology has ostensibly ended wars and national strife, closed the distance in human relationships, and created a society of leisure that no longer necessitates labor from all citizens to function. It is a culture based on ideas and self-actualization that is independent of the demands of mortality and the natural world.

This supposed advancement—a word that Vashti uses more than once to describe herself and society—is paradoxical because it causes humans to devolve. They are helpless without technology. They cannot even breathe the air outside because they have adapted to manufactured air. Instead of using technology as a tool to make humanity stronger, the people allow it to replace instinct and survival skills. They have no choice but to hope that the Machine will repair itself because they do not have the ability to leave. The Machine becomes a framework for control and advances society in some ways, but removes some of the basic aspects of human existence, such as touch and affection, the ability to create, and connection to the body.