The Machine Stops

“You talk as if a god had made the Machine. […] I believe that you pray to it when you are unhappy. Men made it, do not forget that. Great men, but men.”

Kuno calls out his mother for behaving as if the Machine were a deity. Vashti is offended because religion is deemed antithetical to an advanced society. But for those who live in it, the Machine is all-powerful and everything they have ever known. Everything on the surface is contrary the Machine, and citizens are encouraged to think of the natural world outside—what might be considered, in a religious society, to be created by a deity—as crude and primitive.

“The room, though it contained nothing, was in touch with all that she cared for in the world.”

At the beginning of the story, Vashti has not left her room in decades. Much like today’s world, she has access to communication with others, art, literature, entertainment, and necessities of life without needing to venture out. It is notable that the room is “in touch with all that she cared for in the world,” but Vashti is not. Her isolation highlights the disconnect between humans and the rest of the world. There is a gap between people and the things that they love; their lives, like Vashti’s room, are literally empty. 

“Above her, beneath her, and around her, the Machine hummed eternally; she did not notice the noise for she had been born with it in her ears.”

Vashti is accustomed to the sound of the Machine because it is ever-present. The repeated motif of the Machine’s hum emphasizes that human beings can adapt to situations that are not healthy or good for the continuation of the species.