On Nature Connections: E. M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops”
This is the 2nd story in the ‘On Nature Connections’ series. The first, “Introduced at TEDxOxbridge” can be found here.
In ‘grade-school book report’ format, I bring you E. M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops” in 5 to 10 minutes, although I strongly recommend that you read the full novella. Future stories in this series will identify and explore elements and themes contained in “The Machine Stops”.
“The Machine Stops” by E. M. Forster (1909)
“The Machine Stops” was published in 1909 in The Oxford and Cambridge Review. The story is recognised as a great novella (lengthy for a short story) and work of science fiction. Through it, Forster is credited with predicting technologies such as the internet and instant messaging. This is especially impressive considering that talking motion pictures hadn’t even been invented at that time. “The Machine Stops” reflects Forster’s concerns about the future of humanity, and the key theme centres on the consequences of humanity’s dependence upon technology.
About the Author
Edward Morgan (E. M.) Forster was born in 1879 in London, England. He was raised by his mother and aunts, as his father died when Forster was a baby. Forster studied at Cambridge, where:
For the first time he was free to follow his own intellectual inclinations; and he gained a sense of the uniqueness of the individual, of the healthiness of moderate scepticism…. (Britannica.com).
Forster became a writer following his time at Cambridge. A humanist, he most often explored themes of class difference, meaningful connections between people and between people and the earth, and sexuality. His most famous works include, A Room with a View (1908), Howards End (1910), and A Passage to India (1924). Maurice (1971) was published following Forster’s death of a stroke in 1970. The novel is a homosexual love story that he had written in around 1913. Forster was open about his homosexuality only with his close friends and not with the general public. He was a lifelong bachelor.
Forster was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature 19 times and in 13 different years and awarded membership in the Order of Companions of Honour in 1953. He received the Order of Merit from Queen Elizabeth in 1969 and declined knighthood. Some of Forster’s novels, for which he is most remembered, have been adapted to film, receiving multiple Academy Award wins and nominations.
Setting
“The Machine Stops” is set in subterranean Earth, where humans have built ‘the Machine’ to house the entire population.
But Humanity, in its desire for comfort, had over-reached itself. It had exploited the riches of nature too far. Quietly and complacently, it was sinking into decadence, and progress had come to mean the progress of the Machine.
The image of a honeycomb is given to describe the inner structure, which contains many small rooms that are hexagonal in shape, identical to each other across the world, and can accommodate one person. Rooms contain an armchair and desk and come equipped with technology that serves meals, provides hot baths, plays music, changes the air, raises a bed, and connects people via video communication. There are buttons to operate these various devices and also a Mending Apparatus to fix any issues experienced.
Platforms outside the rooms with rail transport can take people to the air transport service. One of the few ways that the outside world can be seen is from air-ships. Cities are in ruin and forests and rivers have long been degraded and destroyed. Although many natural features remain, the surface of the earth is believed to be uninhabitable for humans. Day and night have been blanked out within the Machine, where people are content.
Characters
Vashti
And in the armchair there sits a swaddled lump of flesh — a woman, about five feet high, with a face as white as a fungus.
Vashti embraces the life she lives inside of the Machine. Her contentment with all that technology provides leads her to spend almost the entirety of her life within her single room. She has a son named Kuno, and while she’s had other children, parenting responsibilities cease at birth.
Vashti shuns human contact and finds the outside world repulsive.
“I dislike seeing the horrible brown earth, and the sea, and the stars when it is dark.”
Notably, Vashti is considered normal relative to the rest of the human population. She spends her time idea sharing and lecturing from her room. She has little patience for disruption to her day and an almost non-existent comfort zone.
Kuno
…There was something special about Kuno….
Kuno is Vashti’s son, but lives on the opposite side of the world from her. He is youthful and possesses some strength, although this doesn’t indicate much as babies who are born with a strong build are euthanised. Further, Kuno is rejected to become a father. His genes are not deemed suitable for reproduction because physical strength is not needed for life in the Machine.
Kuno is restless and seeks escape.
“The truth is … that I want to see these stars again. They are curious stars. I want to see them not from the air-ship, but from the surface of the earth, as our ancestors did, thousands of years ago.”
He desires physical, mental, and spiritual exploration, meaningful human contact, and contact with the natural world. Kuno is abnormal relative to the general population.
Plot Summary
The plot begins with a video call from Kuno to his mother, Vashti. Kuno asks Vashti to visit him. Vashti isn’t interested in the idea, as it will require her to take an air-ship across the world, and she doesn’t understand why they can’t simply talk through the video feed.
Kuno explains that he would like to visit the surface of the earth. Vashti questions Kuno as to why he’d want to do this, given that no life remains on the surface, the outer air causes immediate death, and the Machine provides everything a person could possibly want.
Vashti quickly dismisses the idea of travel, viewing it as purposeless and contradictory to the times.
And of course she had studied the civilisation that had immediately preceded her own — the civilisation that had mistaken the functions of the system, and had used it for bringing people to things, instead of for bringing things to people.
Kuno refuses to speak with Vashti until she visits him, so she asks him why he can’t come to visit her.
“Because I cannot leave this place.”
“Why?”
“Because, any moment, something tremendous may happen.”
Vashti decides to visit Kuno. Having lived without in-person contact for months, she does not enjoy the travel experience. She arrives at Kuno’s room, where Kuno informs her that he’s been threatened with ‘Homelessness’, meaning death by exposure to the outside air. This threat has been issued because Kuno ventured out to the surface of the earth without securing a permit.
It’s an act thought to be impossible, but Kuno had begun to exercise, acquainting himself with the abilities of the human body and eventually finding ventilation shafts used by the workers in the days of the building of the Machine. After a harrowing effort, Kuno made it to the surface of the earth, where he struggled to breath the air. By evening he was able to climb a hill to view his surroundings.
“…They were living and the turf that covered them was a skin, under which their muscles rippled, and I felt that those hills had called with incalculable force to men in the past, and that men had loved them.”
Kuno tries to convince Vashti of the tragedy of life within the Machine.
“It has robbed us of the sense of space and of the sense of touch, it has blurred every human relation and narrowed down love to a carnal act, it has paralysed our bodies and our wills….”
While Kuno was observing his natural surroundings, the Machine was fixing the hole to the surface that Kuno had created. The ‘Mending Apparatus’ included mechanical “white worms” that deployed to bring objects back from the surface. One of the worms ensnared Kuno, and during the struggle to free himself from the worm, Kuno hit his head, falling unconscious. He later awoke back in his room.
Vashti is critical of Kuno’s adventure, noting the absence of humans on the surface of the earth and highlighting that Homelessness means death. Here, Kuno reveals that he saw a girl on the surface. She had tried to free him from the “white worm”, but in the struggle her throat was pierced and she died. Kuno counts her as lucky for dying free. Vashti has heard enough from Kuno by this time however, and returns home. It’s the last time that she sees her son’s face.
Time passes and it’s noted that knowledge of the Machine has been increasingly compartmentalised. From generation to generation, an understanding of the Machine’s interdependent functions has greatly narrowed. Following a period without dialogue between Vashti and Kuno, who had since been moved to a room not far from his mother’s, he calls her and says that the Machine is stopping.
“The Machine stops.”
“What do you say?”
“The Machine is stopping, I know it, I know the signs.”
She burst into a peal of laughter. He heard her and was angry, and they spoke no more.
“Defects” had been on the rise, such as distortions in the music, noises in the walls, and rotten food. Complaints aren’t addressed. It comes to light that the Mending Apparatus itself is in need of repair. Things continue to worsen until the communication system breaks down. The machine has stopped. Vashti is distraught and looks out from her room onto the platform.
People were crawling about, people were screaming, whimpering, gasping for breath, touching each other, vanishing in the dark, and ever and anon being pushed off the platform on to the live rail.
Vashti returns to her room, where soon after all light disappears amidst the loud collapse of the Machine. She falls back out onto the platform where people are weeping and dying. Vashti and the dying population experience an epiphany.
Ere silence was completed their hearts were opened, and they knew what had been important on the earth. Man, the flower of all flesh, the noblest of all creatures visible, man who had once made god in his image, and had mirrored his strength on the constellations, beautiful naked man was dying, strangled in the garments that he had woven.
Vashti calls out for Kuno as they lay dying in the dark.
“But Kuno, is it true? Are there still men on the surface of the earth? Is this — tunnel, this poisoned darkness — really not the end?”
He replied:
“I have seen them, spoken to them, loved them. They are hiding in the midst and the ferns until our civilisation stops. Today they are the Homeless — tomorrow — — — “
“Oh, tomorrow — some fool will start the Machine again, tomorrow.”
“Never,” said Kuno, “never. Humanity has learnt its lesson.”
The last sight they have is of the “untainted sky” through openings in the crumbling machine.
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Top 5 Links
“The Machine Stops” by E. M. Forster online (it’s free, although there are slight errors in the text)
“The Machine Stops” short film trailer (it gives a good visual depiction of the story’s setting; Vashti is not described as pictured)
The Wikipedia article on E. M. Forster (it gives a good overall summary of his life and works)
E. M. Forster’s Maurice on Amazon (it’s a novel he wasn’t comfortable enough to publish during his lifetime; had 1913 been 2013 perhaps he would have)
My TEDxOxbridge Talk (I link “The Machine Stops” to some of the themes I’ll soon be expanding upon)
