Reflection on The Machine Stops by E.M. Foster—— By Steve Sun

Reflection on The Machine Stops by E.M. Foster

The fiction describes a dystopian future of human race that the machines took the control over the world. The human in that fictional world lived underground separately in chambers where all their needs were fulfilled by the buttons on the walls. The people spent their whole life in the chambers and their thoughts were generated in it. As a result over many years the people below the surface began to change and worship the machine. The transportation to the surface of the earth and between humans were not banned but no one saw any need in doing such thing. The main character of the fiction are Vashti who was consent with her life in the chamber and her son Kuno who has always challenged the authority of the Machine. The story follows the two of them as they struggle to keep their relationship in this world.

I do agree with a lot of people who have read this fiction that the theme of this story lies in that a world which depend itself solely on the technology and “Machines” will definitely end up catastrophically for human, which in this case is that the machine stops working and collapsed, along with the humans in it. But I think that it’s not only the physical body of the human were destroyed, but also the thought of human were controlled. People living in the chambers simply believe that the environment on surface of the earth is too hostile to live and simply deny the fact that there were indeed people living on it. People who challenge the authority of the Machine will be seen as  ‘unmechanical’ and threatened with Homelessness. And what’s more tragic is that the fact that the human fears the Machine was initially created by human rather than by machine itself. It’s the human who created the machine, it’s also human who are satisfied with their lives imprisoned in the machine and the interaction cut by machine, and its also human who gradually depend their whole life on machine and see them as their god. While machines just followed the things that they are programmed to do, or to some extend, they did nothing, but by doing nothing they controlled human who were meant to control. How ironic.