The Machine Stops short story review
The Machine Stops short story review“The Machine Stops” takes place on Earth about a thousand years into the future in a supposed “technological utopia.” Mankind had advanced so much that a robot named “the Machine” did everything for humans while they simply sit in their cells. No one lived on the surface of the Earth anymore, but underground, where artificial air and light, perpetual darkness, and the constant hum of the Machine is a life they all knew. The only life they knew of. People lived in their own individual, single cells in isolation most of their lives. Leaving it was unnecessary, because the machine satisfied a person’s every whim. It dressed, fed, bathed and entertained what more could human race ask for? Direct interaction among people was no longer favored, and had ceased to almost none; communication went through the Machine.
The main characters in this story are Vashti, an elderly woman; and her son Kuno, a man with a mind of his own. The story starts when Kuno begs his mother to visit him at his cell, because he had something to tell her. Vashti finding this an odd request of human interaction refuses at first, but then finally agrees. With great strength and will power she boards an air-ship, and heads for where her son lived. The air-ship rose to the surface of the Earth where the sun shone. Vashti closes the blinds in disgust trying to get every inch of sunlight away from her, and finds that the attendant was quite rude and vulgar for directly talking and interacting with her. Upon her arrival at Kuno’s cell he tells her his experience of sneaking up to the surface of the Earth without permission from the “Central Committee.” He tells her that there is still a beautiful world up there, and human race has created a monster out of the Machine. Vashti utterly appalled at what his son had told her unbelievingly departs with the thought of how foolish her son had been to even tell her such blasphemous stories. Finally a few years after the incident Vashti notices that the Machine was failing. The bath water was tainted, the air became foul, the machine stops humming introducing a new thing called silence, and nothing worked when it was summoned. Kuno had told Vashti before that “the Machine stops,” but it was only in the end that Vashti finally knew that Kuno was right all along. The civilization ruled by the Machine finally stopped and human race collapses. Vashti and Kuno also die when the Machine stopped.
The protagonist in “The Machine Stops” is Vashti, while Kuno is the antagonist. Vashti’s goals were simple; she just wanted to live her life under the Machine. Kuno comes in and distracts that goal. This conflict between them becomes an individual emotional conflict inside Vashti. It was a battle between her morals that the Machine had etched into her head since...
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