- Sep 2015
-
archive.ncsa.illinois.edu archive.ncsa.illinois.edu
-
pneumatic post?
Was used in the 1897 NYC postal system.
-
One other passenger was in the lift, the first fellow creature she had seen face to face for months.
Human interaction becomes nearly obsolete.
-
presently she could see the image of her son, who lived on the other side of the earth, and he could see her.
One aspect of the machine is similar to our modern-day Skype
-
THE MACHINE STOPS
Are you sure you don't mean Wall-E?!
-
The bed was not to her liking. It was too large, and she had a feeling for a small bed.
FirstWorldProblems --- the fact that her bed is "too big" shows how much the Machine spoils her
-
The woman
-
She thought, "I have not the time."
I imagine vashti exactly like this
-
hexagonal in shape, like the cell of a bee
-
If she was hot or cold or dyspeptic or at a loss for a word, she went to the book, and it told her which button to press.
The Machine and the book detailing its processes again fosters a dependent relationship between the humans and Machines. Humans rely upon the Machine wholeheartedly to solve their problems; this connection creating a system of subservience towards the Machine.
-
To "keep pace with the sun," or even to outstrip it, had been the aim of the civilization preceding this.
Current goal for science & technology - to increase our sphere of knowledge, to explore farther & farther. In this future world, the technological advances have resulted in the human race secluding themselves. Both literal and metaphorical retreat into darkness
-
Machine
-
The custom had become obsolete, owing to the Machine.
Reflects our current want for technology to do everything for us.
-
"Oh, I remember Asia. The Mongols came from it."
homage to Genghis Khan and Kublai Khan. They were innovators of their time. they created stirrups and gunpowder among other things
-
she put out her hand to steady her. "How dare you!" exclaimed the passenger. "You forget yourself!" The woman was confused, and apologized for not having let her fall. People never touched one another. The custom had become obsolete, owing to the Machine.
Oversensitive due to a lack of contact with other people- isolation. "you forget yourself"- she is calling her uncivilised. The flight attendant is one of the few that has human interaction on a daily basis, so it was not foreign to her to reach out and help someone, she had not become as self centred as the others had in their isolation.
-
Of Homelessness more will be said later.
HM WHAT COULD THIS POSSIBLY MEAN (is something one would say if they were asking a question about the story)
-
hexagonal in shape, like the cell of a bee
-
"No ideas here," murmured Vashti, and hid the Caucasus behind a metal blind.
Referencing how we hide behind our technology.
-
Has she had any ideas lately? Might one tell her one"s own ideas?
The Machine, through asking if Vashti and the members of the community if they have 'had any ideas lately', fosters a community based upon control; it appears to be a threatening statement, characterising the relationship between the humans and the machines as one of almighty leader (the Machine) dictating the thoughts and ideas of the humans in the community.
-
THE MACHINE STOPS
the machine can also relate to the government. the machine provides us with all we need (in theory and in more extreme governments) but holds secrets to it as well. Becoming "homeless" is the government stopping care for you and you die out on your own because without the government (or the machine) you are nothing.
-
That she had no ideas of her own but had just been told one-that four stars and three in the middle were like a man: she doubted there was much in it.
Again this idea that having ideas is kind of a value and goal. That in this society no one has their own ideas, but rather they just take information that given to them and just spit back out. So when someone has a new idea it may be considered revolutionary. This is similar to how today people just read opinions on the internet and instead of formulating their own they just regurgitate their opinions.
-
same dimension all over the world
There is this idea of standardization with technology and a lack of specification for people to get what they really want and instead just get the normal options.
-
Then, half ashamed, half joyful, she murmured "O Machine!" and raised the volume to her lips. Thrice she kissed it, thrice inclined her head, thrice she felt the delirium of acquiescence. Her ritual performed, she turned to page 1367,
Forester is showing that at this point, Vashti is still hesitant to worship the machine but still has the feelings to, and follows through on them, which makes it easier for her to accept the machine's religion later in the story. In terms of our technologies today, we're not as useless as they are without them (at this point we can still lift books and feed ourselves) but we would still be extremely crippled if our tech failed as theirs did in the end.
-
His image is the blue plate faded.
an example of the false sense of interaction, Vashti is satisfied with yet Kuno is not.
-
"The four big stars are the man"s shoulders and his knees. The three stars in the middle are like the belts that men wore once, and the three stars hanging are like a sword."
-
"And that white stuff in the cracks? - what is it?" "I have forgotten its name."
snow
-
The clumsy system of public gatherings had been long since abandoned; neither Vashti nor her audience stirred from their rooms.
Meeting were conducted in isolation, removing the human element and focusing on the power of the machine. This isolation has many consequences including hypersensitivity to natural sunlight, the inability to display emotions for her own son, and human contact is considered a violation of personal rights/ uncivilised .
-
"You must excuse my common way of speaking. I have got into the habit of calling places over which I pass by their unmechanical names."
The world has changed even in name because of The Machine.
-
"I will not tell you through the Machine."
the machine/the committee is watching everything you say, relating to perhaps a paranoid, powerful governmental system
-
the Machine did not transmit nuances of expression
The Machine is used merely as a tool to convey messages - emotions cannot be translated through it. Thus, the relationship between the humans and 'The Machine' becomes one of control - in that the Machine has a hold over the humans and influences their social interactions.
-
Racing aeroplanes had been built for the purpose, capable of enormous speed,
very similar fighter jets
-
for the Machine did not transmit nuances of expression
similar to how it can be hard to text with emotions hence why emoticons are so popular). Sometimes certain sentences are phrases have different meaning through text depending on the way one says it or is expressing it, but someone can't tell through the text itself.
-
She knew several thousand people, in certain directions human intercourse had advanced enormously.
This is a possibility today due to advances technology but we haven't really hit the point where we make enough of an effort to know several thousand people
-
Then she generated the light, and the sight of her room, flooded with radiance and studded with electric buttons, revived her.
Vashti is immediately remedied of her loneliness when Kuno isolates himself by the familiar artificial lights and buttons of her machine. These people seems to only dwell in emotions in the time it takes to press a single button. The subtraction of family and emotions is replaced by the artificial machine.
-
How we have advanced, thanks to the Machine!" "How we have advanced, thanks to the Machine!" said Vashti. "How we have advanced, thanks to the Machine!" echoed the passenger who had dropped his Book the night before, and who was standing in the passage.
they treat the Machine as a God, and scarily perhaps more than a God
-
"O Machine!" she murmured, and caressed her Book, and was comforted.
Kuno is right in the fact that she worships the Machine. The Book is essentially her bible.
-
"O Machine!" she murmured, and caressed her Book, and was comforted.
Machine=used for comfort. We kind of do the same thing with our technology.
-
What kind of ideas can the air give you
this world holds a value for coming up with new ideas, but for what? new technologies? theories? its not really explained.
-
Of course she knew all about the communication-system. There was nothing mysterious in it. She would summon a car and it would fly with her down the tunnel until it reached the lift that communicated with the air-ship station
purposely contradictory, she says the system is not complicated, yet can not actually explain how it works other than "she would summon a car and it would fly with her down"
-
I will isolate myself
This idea of isolation is also a concept foreign to the reader. While the word is familiar, the idea of 'isolating yourself' to talk to others is an unfamiliar idea not used in the present day. These cultural references are not wholly explained, but become more clear in the mind of the reader as the text progresses.
-
"I believe that you pray to it when you are unhappy. Men made it, do not forget that. Great men, but men. The Machine is much, but it is not everything.
Draws attention to the fact that humans should not get carried away with their awe of "the Machine", or technology in general, as it is not everything, rather, a connivence.
-
palpitating
word used mostly druing the writing of the pecie and scarcely ued now [https://www.google.com/search?q=palpitating&oq=palpitating&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.974j0j9&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=119&ie=UTF-8]
-
"I believe that you pray to it when you are unhappy.
machine=god
-
his visits to her-visits which stopped when the Machine had assigned him a room on the other side of the earth. "Parents, duties of," said the book of the Machine," cease at the moment of birth. P.422327483."
There is a system in place to separate parents from their children. Page 422327483. Many many pages.
-
She repeated, "No ideas here," and hid Greece behind a metal blind.
Here is an interesting way to close the section because a lot of the land names have changed since this post-apocalyptic world, but Greece appears here giving us a real world example of how crazy this is
-
The room, though it contained nothing, was in touch with all that she cared for in the world.
This reminds me a lot of cell phones and how they are just a complex metal and glass box with wires, they contain for most of us our entire life whether it be phone number of friends, or music we love, or pictures of people important to us. The room in the story contains nothing, yet she finds fulfillment in its ability to provide for her.
-
lump of flesh-a woman, about five feet high, with a face as white as a fungus
Is this Forster saying that we'll all become obese indoor dwellers?
-
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.
She's sitting underground, and described as looking like fungus--its almost as if she's being described as a vegetable rather than a human
-
"Cover the window, please. These mountains give me no ideas."
-
"Cover the window, please. These mountains give me no ideas."
ignorance to nature, technology has taken over in a cult-y fashion. Also people seem to be obsessed with "ideas" but there is a very strict definition of what these "ideas" can and can't be about
-
this room is throbbing with melodious sounds
like those speakers that can be built into walls
-
An electric bell rang
gives the connotation of someone is at the door, but in the story its actually more like a phone call.
-
pneumatic post
The idea of 'pneumatic post' may need to be explained. As far as I know, this concept is never brought up in the text again, and is not a process that is familiar to a contemporary reader. Therefore, we begin to understand that the text and its cultural references are foreign to us, and are possibly not rooted in our time frame/universe.
-
The three stars in the middle are like the belts that men wore once, and the three stars hanging are like a sword."
is this referring to Orion's belt?
-
There were buttons and switches everywhere - buttons to call for food for music, for clothing. There was the hot-bath button, by pressure of which a basin of (imitation) marble rose out of the floor, filled to the brim with a warm deodorized liquid. There was the cold-bath button. There was the button that produced literature.
Forster uses this bit to describe just how advanced the technology is at the this time, a button to press for anything imaginable to happen
-
I get no ideas in an air- ship."
Reference to how technology can stifle creativity.
-
hexagonal in shape, like the cell of a bee
This may soon be anachronistic--save the honey bees!
-
"Oh, hush!" said his mother, vaguely shocked. "You mustn"t say anything against the Machine."
Their relationship is almost like one between God and mortal. You can't say anything against The Machine or you face consequences.
-
Australian Period
What time period is this in relation to us?
-
two days to fly between me and you
As opposed to the months via ship, could be confusing for a modern person since traveling across the world takes only 17 hours without connections.
-
I see something like you in this plate, but I do not see you. I hear something like you through this telephone, but I do not hear you.
- written in only 1909, this description is vaguely similar to a video chat/facetime call
-
I see something like you in this plate, but I do not see you. I hear something like you through this telephone, but I do not hear you.
Affinities we share with our technological tools--it sounds a lot like ipads/skype and of course our usage of cellphones.
-
-
Local file Local file
-
And so with themouldy artificial fruit, so with the bath water that began to stink, so with thedefective rhymes that the poetry machine had taken to emit. all were bitterlycomplained of at first, and then acquiesced in and forgotten. Things wentfrom bad to worse unchallenged.
people adapt to the point of complacency - changes are made or things go wrong but they eventually just learn to accept them (when websites or services make bad updates)
-
At midday she took a second glance at the earth. The air- ship was crossinganother range of mountains, but she could see little, owing to clouds.Masses of black rock hovered below her, and merged indistinctly into grey.Their shapes were fantastic; one of them resembled a prostrate man."No ideas here," murmured Vashti, and hid the Caucasus behind a metalblind.
"Ideas" have a different meaning in this world - inspiration does not come from where you would expect it to
-
the civilization that had mistakenthe functions of the system, and had used it for bringing people to things,instead of for bringing things to people. Those funny old days, when menwent for change of air instead of changing the air in their rooms!
Today with the internet and new technologies we can bring the world to us. Social media, entertainment, online shopping etc.
-
Homelessness means death.
In this story homelessness has a different meaning and denotation (but possibly derived from our own world's connotations of homelessness)
-
Men made it, do notforget that. Great men, but men. The Machine is much, but it is noteverything.
The relationship with humans and machines - humans created them yet they now have come to worship them. The machine should not become greater than those who created it.
-