The Machine Stops Study Guide TWO

 

The Machine Stops Study Guide Part 2

For Reading Groups and Individuals

WEEK 1: Introductions:

By way of introduction to the sense of time and place, it may be helpful to share with the group where one or more of your grandparents grew up.

The Machine Stops was published in 1909, and has remained in print ever since. What do you know about the 1909 local economy of the city, town or village where you are now living?

WEEK 2: The Airship

Part I of the story provides an overview of the world political economy.

WEEK 3: The Mending Apparatus

Part I of the story explores the history of humanity and shows how the Machine developed the ability to control its inmates.

WEEK 4: The Homeless

Part III explores the apathy of the culturally and spiritually deprived inhabitants of the Machine. Hope lies in those humans living in the real world.

WEEK 5: Conclusions

If this was a useful exercise, where might it lead/ how might it be developed?

WEEK 2: The Airship

(Suggested discussion points)

The following phrases and sentences could trigger discussion of the context from which it is taken and its relationship to present-day concerns. Each topic would lend itself to further study.

Imagine, if you can, a small room, hexagonal in shape like the cell of a bee.

Forster's short story is packed full with sentences that are, like this one, laden with meaning. A beehive is a complex mechanism that runs like clockwork. Each bee has its 'cell', its place in the overall scheme of things. It has its tasks to perform, but no idea how the whole system runs, or what its purpose might be. The individual merely performs its allotted tasks, following the rules and regulations, asking no fundamental questions. Yet, as every child and bee-keeper knows, adult bees do not live in cells.

..a swaddled lump of flesh ... with a face as white as a fungus.

The room is said to 'belong' to this unhealthy specimen of humanity. Ownership implies some degree of control. To what extent can Vashti, the character presented here, be said to 'own' her cell? And how realistic is it that such a creature could survive physically and mentally?

An electric bell rang.

Considered in the context of Part 1 of the story, the sentence is brim full of meaning. Electricity had yet to be commonplace in households (as were bathrooms and running water). In 1909 most homes were lit by fire and candle light. Music came out of voices and instruments, recorded voices and music were still regarded as bordering on the unnatural. Telegraph and telephones could convey messages across long distances, but the apparatus was not commonly available in households. A bell was normally a metal object rung for the purpose of summoning a servant in a wealthy household.

"Oh, hush! ... You mustn't say anything against the Machine."

Vashti is entirely taken up within the life of the artificial, man-made world of Machine. Kuno, on the other hand, wishes to speak "face to face", and not through "the wearisome Machine." What do you think is going on here? What is each character thinking?

There were buttons to call for food, for music, for clothing...etc. In 1909 the sources of one's food and other subsistence needs were transparent to all citizens, as were the sources of information and entertainment. Supermarkets and TV were two world wars away, and on-line ordering was inconceivable. Do we know any better than Vashti and Kuno how our last meal travelled from soil to household, on what land, and through whose labour, did it materialise?

The imponderable bloom ...

The Machine rightly ignores the 'imponderable bloom' on the grape and face-to-face, direct communication between people. Is it truly "something good enough" that has "long since been accepted by our race"?

...irritation - a growing quality in that accelerated age.

The "clumsy system of public gatherings" has been replaced by instant communications. This has, as Forster predicted, caused an incredible increase in the pace of life. But to what end? Vashti has no time even to arrange to pay a flying visit to the 'public nurseries ... say this day month'. The suggestion here is that her latest infant is in the nurseries. The ruling P.422327483 of the Machine declares that "parents, duties of, ... cease at the moment of birth".

"Kuno ...I am not well."

The remark triggers an immediate response. Vashti has no say in the matter as medical care is dispensed through a robot. Nevertheless, "the human passions still blundered up and down the Machine".

What was the good of going to Pekin when it was just like Shrewsbury?

In 1909 the "air-ship service" was yet to be developed. Yet Forster portrayed it as a relic of the past, when people sought to see the world through direct experience. For the inhabitants of the machine, direct experience and person-to-person contact have become obsolete. Vashti is the only person travelling from personal choice. Her fellow travellers are being taken to the rooms allotted to them by the Machine, or to some mysterious clinic "for the purpose of propagating the race".

... and the Committee of the Machine, at the time rising into prominence, declared the pursuit illegal, unmechanical, and punishable by Homelessness.

The scenario presented here is by no means as inconceivable now as it was before World War I. Then, laws could not have been 'declared' by a Central Committee. Now, we are all in constant danger of breaking a new law declared as we sleep.