I wanted to touch on the machine’s importance to the character’s in the story, particularly Vashti. One thing that I kept seeing was how Vashti never questioned the machine or what it told her. Never questioning her parental rights, Vashti rattles off the machine’s statement that, “Parents, duties of,” said the book of the Machine,” cease at the moment of birth. P.422327483.” The machine and the order/regulation it provides serves as a source of comfort for its inhabitants who never have to think for themselves. Instead the inhabitants, such as Vashti, just pray; “O Machine!” she murmured, and caressed her Book, and was comforted.” The idea of never questioning the machine comes from society’s perceived reality that the machine is god-like and governed by a mysterious committee that is supposedly smarter/better than others in society. This way of allowing oneself to be governed by a more “knowledgeable” being is one that persists throughout society even today. In line with Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, The Machine Stops demonstrates how society dictates a person’s reality and the consequences of this. Therefore suggesting that when one just does what all others do, awful things happen, such as the machine breaking. Consequentially, Forster suggests that if we don’t think for ourselves and break out of society’s mold as to what is real or okay, then our society will crumble and become “broken like a honeycomb.”