A Literary Analysis Of 'The Machine Stops'

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In the story “The Machine Stops” there were many fantastic happenings that were thought of as nothing more than works of the imagination that could never be made real, yet all the things mentioned in the story have become a staple of life in today’s first world countries. A first world country is a country that is ahead or has many industries that propel it economically. Although it is a story of fiction written in the past it seems to foreshadow what is very possibly an outcome for the United States of today. An illustration of this in the story is everyone has become distant and although they have the means to travel and have a face to face encounter with other people they would rather sit in the rooms with little more than a blurred image …show more content…
Although the societies of the United States and that of “The Machine Stops” use their technology in different ways about their daily life, both of them rely on it wholeheartedly with little doubt that it will fail at any time. For example the people of The Machine need only to push a button to summon food, clothing, or entertainment almost instantly with no effort on their part. This button system is the crux of their life and they would surely suffer if The Machine stopped supplying their needs. But, the never ending machine could break down because no machine is impervious to mechanical error. A Mechanical error would cause citizens to be trapped in their rooms with no fresh food, cloths, or air. An example of how technology is in use in the United States on a daily bases is in how the society works and flows as a whole. The society works off of delivery of goods in a timely manner. If this timely manner is disturbed then the people would run out food, clothing, water, electricity, and heating just to name a few. An example of this disturbed time table would be during a power outage where water, gas, and power are lost. This outage would cause food to rot and people to …show more content…
Utilizing travel is seldom done in “The Machine Stops” and this is apparent when the Main character reaches the airships and describes them as old and from a different time. The Reason this is a problem with the airships is that they are not in use anymore except for when a person is being moved to a different hemisphere. An example of how the United States uses travel is vastly different from how it is used in the story, being the people of the United States use it constantly. Although the story mentions many forms of travel similar to what the United States has today the technology used in the story to travel is always old because of the society’s lack of wanting to travel. On the other hand the United States and other first world countries travel at an almost constant rate and have to keep their machines in working order. Although for how long they will have to keep them in working order is unclear because of the hours saved by facetiming someone rather than flying to them and meeting them face to
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