International Journal of Arts & Sciences,

CD-ROM. ISSN: 1944-6934 :: 08(04):435440 (2015)

A CULTURAL MATERIALIST READING OF E. M. FORSTERS

THE MACHINE STOPS

Ebru Ceker
Cumhuriyet University, Turkey

The term cultural materialism was first coined by Raymond Williams who associated culture with
materialism, and maintained that culture was material of arts. The theory he put forward was part of a
wider movement, begun in the 1960s and 1970s, towards new theoretical paradigms that acknowledged
the necessary materiality of cultural texts and institutions (Milner and Browitt 36). It is a Marxist
approach which reveals the connection between culture and hegemonic authorities and it focuses on
how individuals shape culture even if they are also affected by historical circumstances beyond their
control (Auger 68). Hence, it is concerned with individuals (the weak groups or the marginals)
power to shape the circumstances rather than the influences of the authority (the dominant ideology) on
the circumstances. It identifies the existing subversive elements (marginal groups) within the oppressive
authority. However, it does not deny the power of the authority, either. On the contrary, cultural
materialism emphasizes that the authority plays a determining role in the formation of the dominant
ideology in society, politics, and literature. It claims that texts are imbued with hegemonic ideologies
and in order to comprehend the underlying themes in these texts, one needs to be aware of these
manipulations present in texts (Brannigan 119). Hence, through a cultural materialist reading the aim is
to provide a deeper understanding of the text by taking into account all kinds of possible influential
elements of the age the text is written.
This paper aims to analyze Edward Morgan Forsters short story The Machine Stops from a cultural
materialist point of view. It is a work of science fiction which flourished in the twentieth century. The
initial mission of the genre was to spread scientific ideas among as many people as possible (Drabble
904). Forster, with this story, reverses this aim of the genre and uses it to demonstrate the destructive
and unappealing effects of excessive scientific and technological developments. It deals with a futuristic
world where mankind is going through a process of dehumanization and materialisation. It draws a
pessimistic picture of the future, yet the ending of the story states that there is always hope for the
future. Hence, there is a glimmer of hope for the subversive elements against the authority and this
prospect gains the story a significant perspective to be analyzed by a cultural materialist reading.
Keywords: Cultural materialism, Materialism, Subversiveness, Oppressive ideology, Hegemonic
authority.

The Machine Stops was first published in 1909 during which Britain was going through a period of
optimism thanks to the astounding technological scientific advances. It was the Edwardian era1 known
1

Edwardian Era: the period during the reign of Edward VII between the years of 1901 and 1910 (Encyclopdia
Britannica)

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also as belle poque (beautiful era): the Edwardian age was one of the rising standards of living,
widening (if still very unequal) prosperity, and a British economy that remained, in many sectors, a world
leader. Moreover, London was, without rival, the globe centre of trade and finance (Bylth 1). The
technological and scientific advancements were not only restricted within Britain, there were worldwide
frantic developments. For example, the first car was built in 1886 and in 1908 with the production of a
new model by Ford, cars became more prevalent, quantum theory was discovered in 1900, relativity
theory was introduced in 1905, the first transatlantic radio transmission was done in 1902, the first
manned aircraft flight was achieved in 1903 (Unesco). Hence all these advancements influenced and
actually urged Forster to write a story about the possible adverse outcomes of these progresses.
In the story, Forsters attitude toward future is very pessimistic although, in his time, people were
hopeful about the future as they thought that the modern world with all its prosperity and conveniences
would bring them happiness. Forster, on the other hand, was convinced that these very advances would
bring about the fall of mankind. He states: The Machine Stops is a reaction to one of the earlier heavens
of H. G. Wells (Forster vii). Therefore, he affirms that the story is a reaction to the optimistic portrayals
of the future. Forster was an attentive observer of the existing circumstances because, in spite of all the
prosperity and the significant advancements in many fields, there were civil unrests, as well, going on
during the era: the Irish upheaval, trades union conflicts, suffrage issues, demands for social reform and
on the international level there was the Boer War1. The epoch, The Machine Stops is written, (Edwardian
era) is a period of sunlit prosperity and opulent confidence preceding the cataclysm of the Great War
(Drabble 317). Hence, Forster analyzed the current situations in the best way which provided him with an
accurate estimation of the oncoming catastrophes: the Great War and its aftermath. As a result, he
portrayed a disastrous scene in his story. It can be argued that he exaggerates the rate of the technological
progress and its effects on human life, yet it is the nature of science fiction genre to do so. Besides, when
the twenty-first century is considered, the story is not very unrealistic. In the story, he even foresees the
possibility of a video call or the internet which did not exist when the story was written but has been
prevalent in the twenty-first century.
The Machine Stops is narrated in third person and sometimes utilizes direct speech. In the story,
people live under the earth because the world ended up being a liveable place. Their houses are small
cells in which they reside alone and rarely leave there, actually rarely leave their seats, as there are
buttons to meet all kinds of their needs. Thence they have become idle and their muscles have weakened:
they are almost unable to walk. The communication between people is provided only by means of virtual
conversations so there is no face-to-face contact. All institutions are replaced by Machine: family,
religion, government: the authority is monopolized by a single element. The inhabitants claim: The
Machine ... feeds us and clothes us and houses us; through it we speak to one another, through it we see
one another, in it we have our being. The Machine is the friend of ideas and the enemy of superstition: the
Machine is omnipotent, eternal; blessed is the Machine (Forster 147). Hence, they have created a super
power which they believe is beyond human capacity. Although it is their own products, they have ended
up being its slaves. Forster, through the machine figure, parodies the existing authorities in his own time
and his criticism is actually far more applicable to the twenty-first century. The Machine is the highest
point technology has achieved, but it actually stands for the oppressive authority: it can be regarded as
either religion or the government as it has assumed the roles of both. People believe that they have wiped
out superstition but now they worship the Machine. In the story, the narrator evaluates their claim:
The word religion was sedulously avoided, and in theory the Machine was still the
creation and the implement of man, but in practice all, save a few retrogrades, worshipped
as divine. Nor was it worshipped in unity. One believer would be chiefly impressed by
the blue optic plates, through which he saw other believers; another by the mending
1

Boer War was between British Empire and South Africa (1899-1902). The British won the war, but it was not a
celebratory victory rather it was degrading: an Imperial army of a quarter of a million men had taken three years, at
a cost of 270111 (exclusive of post-war reconstruction), to subdue an amateur backwoods army (Hyam 50).

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apparatus, which sinful Kuno had compared to worms; another by the lifts, another by the
Book [the manual book of the machine]. And each would pray to this or to that, and ask it
to intercede for him with the Machine as a whole. (Forster 147 - 148)
It is clear that people have embraced the Machine as a kind of God though they do not confess this
even to themselves: there is no such thing as religion left. All the fear and the superstition that existed
once have been destroyed by the Machine (Forster 132). Greenblatt, in his essay Invisible Bullets,
explains how Harriot with his report on Virginian Indians shed light on the emergence of religion: as a
result of a need for something beyond human power in order to maintain order in society (Greenblatt
790 - 791). Likewise, people in this futuristic world create the Machine for their convenience but it turns
out to control their lives strictly. One of the characters in the story, Kuno, reminds this truth to his mother
who seem to worship it: 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 (Forster 117).
In the story, there are two characters which the reader is introduced: Vashti and her son Kuno who
live on the opposite sides of the world. It starts with a video call between them with an emphasis on the
limited time people have for each other even if it is ones son. She accepts her sons call by saying: I do
not expect anything important will happen for the next five minutes for I can give you fully five
minutes, Kuno (Forster 115). Kuno wants to see her mother face to face and tell her something important
but Vashti refuses saying that she does not have time for a visit and besides she does not like seeing the
barren earth through the air-ship. However, finally, she is obliged to visit him because he refuses to talk to
her through the Machine. She visits him, and Kuno tells her about his expedition on the earth which is
forbidden without getting a permission from the Machine. Vashti, a devoted follower of the rules of the
Machine, is appalled by her sons breaking the rules and is not interested in her sons story at all. She
even feels ashamed for bringing up such a child who questions and rebels against the system of the
Machine. He says that he is threatened with homelessness which is subjecting the person to the air
which kills him. Hence, the punishment of the Machine is absolute: it is death.
In this modern world, the Machine assumes the persecutory role of an oppressive government among
many of its other roles. However, in the persecution process, there is no trial. In this respect, the system
bears some resemblances with the system of persecution of the seventieth century London during the
plague between 1665 and 1666. Michel Foucault explains the procedures implemented at that time and
says that the leper was detected and isolated from the healthy and he was left to death among the other
lepers. He indicates that this is a way of oppressing people: controlling their relations and separating
out their dangerous mixtures (Foucault 13). This system also explains the operation of the Machine, as
well. It controls all kinds of relations among people: it monitors them like a panopticon1 as people rarely
come together; almost all their conversations take place through the Machine. Moreover, the concepts of
family, love, and lust do not exist in the system as this would mean interaction between people, and sex
only takes place with the permission of the Machine for procreation. The Machine extracts people whom
it regards as a threat to the system. The narrator says: By these days it was a demerit to be muscular.
Each infant was examined at birth, and all who promised undue strength were destroyed (Forster 133).
The Machine destroys the muscular people for that they would like to be active: running, climbing but the
new world is not a place to do such activities. If their surroundings did not meet their expectations, they
would cause trouble. For example, Kuno gradually gains bodily strength by some exercises in order to
explore the surface of the earth. He goes out to the surface and realizes that there are still some plants
growing on earth and this means that life on it might still be possible. He poses a threat to the Machine
and that is the reason why he is threatened with homelessness. Hence, the Machine tries to protect itself
against subversion by destroying it in the first place.
The story depicts a mechanical world: everything on it is similar to each other: beds were of the
same dimension all over the world ... the earth was exactly alike all over (Forster 120, 124). This
1

The Panopticon is a machine for dissociating the see/being seen dyad: in the peripheric ring, one is totally seen,
without ever seeing; in the central tower, one sees everything without ever being seen (Foucault 15 16).

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A Cultural Materialist Reading of E. M. Forsters...

sameness is to such extent that, upon reaching her sons residence, Vashti finds her visit unnecessary
thinking: the buttons, the knobs, the reading-desk with the Book, the temperature ... all were exactly the
same (Forster 131). The life is very monotonous, as well: She made the room dark and slept; she awoke
and made the room light; she ate and exchanged ideas with her friends, and listened to music and attended
lectures; she makes the room dark and slept (Forster 121). Forster implicitly makes a reference to the
mechanical world and monotonous life styles of people in the Edwardian era; he only uses a future setting
just like Shakespeare used a different country other than England for his settings in order to escape the
scrutiny of the Elizabethan authority.
Kuno mentions about an image that comes to his mind when he sees some stars. He says that the
image is like a man carrying sword. He explains to his mother: Men carried swords about with them, to
kill animals and other men (Forster 118). Here, he actually implies that man had once will to power: he
was the authority whereas now he has been reduced into a powerless subject by the system he himself has
created. He no longer bears a personal identity: People were almost exactly alike all over the world
(Forster 127). He turned out to be a manufactured good just as Geertz recognizes that human beings are
the manufactured products of their own culture: Our ideas, our values, our acts, even our emotions, are,
like our nervous system itself, cultural products, products manufactured, indeed out of tendencies,
capacities, and dispositions with which we were born, but manufactured nonetheless (Geertz 8). In the
story, Kuno complains that even the machine improves itself but not people: The Machine proceeds
but not to our goals. We only exist as the blood corpuscles that course through its arteries, and if it could
work without us, it would let us die (Forster 140). Forster with this sentence implies that any kind of
authority can dominate people but cannot destroy them totally as it needs them for its own survival.
The control mechanism of the Machine is so advanced that people cannot even talk against it. Vashti
says: One mustnt say anything against the machine (Forster 116). People are not only deterred by the
threat of homelessness (death), they are also unconsciously preconditioned to regard the banned things
by the Machine as something unnecessary or out-dated. Vashti evaluates her sons desire to explore the
surface of the earth as something contrary to the spirit of the age (Forster 119). People are somehow
manipulated. They have totally internalized the system: The passengers sat each in his cabin, avoiding
one another with an almost physical repulsion and longing to be once more under the surface of the earth
(Forster 130). The system has created a uniform society and by this means, it tries to eliminate any risks
of subversion. However, Greenblatt argues: the subversiveness that is genuine and radical ... is at the
same time contained by the power it would appear to threaten (791). His claim is proved in the story: in
spite of all the efforts of the Machine, it cannot totally destroy the subversive elements in the society
because it attempts to form a system that is against human nature. For example, the mother-child
relationship is aimed to be terminated after birth: Parents, duties of, said the book of the Machine,
cease at the moment of birth (Forster 123). However, even the most avid supporter of the system:
Vashti finds this rule difficult to follow: True, but there was something special about Kuno indeed
there was something special about all her children (Forster 123). As it is clear, her instincts overweigh
the learnt system. Here, the probable effect of Freudian concept is recognizable as from the beginning of
the twenty-first century; Freudian theory was introduced and was gradually becoming influential. There
are many other references to subversion. Vashtis struggle with the tiny light is one of them:
[W]hen Vashti found her cabin invaded by a rosy finger of light, she was annoyed, and
tried to adjust the blind. But the blind flew up altogether, and she saw through the
skylight small pink clouds, swaying against a background of blue, and as the sun crept
higher, its radiance entered direct, brimming down the wall, like a golden sea. It rose and
fell with the airships motion, just as waves rise and fall, but it advanced steadily, as a tide
advances. (Forster 127)
The light is a subversive image exists in the system: it is advancing slowly but steadily. Kuno is the
embodied form of this subversiveness. He is not like the rest of the people who have already been reduced
into subjects; he questions the authority and resists the impositions of the system. For example, he wants

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to be in touch with people in person not through the machine. He strengthens his muscles through
exercises and starts walking and running which the machine has made people forget and he gains his
sense of space through this because people have lost this sense as they always use transportations in order
to get somewhere and this situation have annihilated the concepts such as near and far. Kuno comes to
realize this fact when he starts going places on foot. Moreover, he explores the surface of the earth
without the permission of the Machine and discovers that there is still life on earth because some plants
are still growing there. These plants also represent subversiveness. He is threatened by homelessness by
the machine and the validity of his discoveries are denied by the attribution of madness to him. The
functioning of the Machine is no more different than any other authorities just as Foucault has
ascertained: all the authorities exercising individual control function according to a double mode; that of
binary division and branding (mad/sane; dangerous/harmless; normal/abnormal) (Foucault 14). Hence,
the system preserves its power through invalidating the claims of opposing forces by weakening their
credibility.
The story proceeds with displaying some developments which have been initiated by Kunos actions
and discoveries, yet emphasizes [o]n the surface they were revolutionary, but in either case mens minds
had been prepared beforehand, and they did but express tendencies that were latent already (Forster 29).
Throughout time, some defects occur in the Machine but it is pointed out that people start getting
accustomed to them and no longer complain about them. At the end of the story, the Machine stops: it is
broken down. People are startled and do not know what to do without the Machine. There follows the
chaos: they start fighting. They do not have the ability to lead their lives on their own without the
authority: They were not fighting now. Only the whispers remained, and the little whimpering groans.
They were dying by hundreds out in the dark (Forster 39). Hence, at this point, it seems that the authority
fails but the struggle of the people to survive does, as well. However, the rest of the story makes it sure
that humanity does not fail. The story ends with Vashti finding her son out there in the dark and they have
their last conversation but Kuno is happy as it is face to face. Vashti asks if there is any hope for them and
Kuno says None for us (Forster 39). He furthermore says that there are still men on the surface so there
is hope for humanity even though not for them. This is as optimistic attitude and underlines the idea that
the oppressive authorities are condemned to fail and beaten by subversive powers even if the winning side
has to suffer, as well. His mother states that this is a vicious circle and some fool will start the Machine
again, tomorrow but Kuno objects and says: Never ... never. Humanity has learnt its lesson (Forster
40). As it is clear from his remarks, Kuno thinks that people will not repeat their mistakes and there is
always hope for humanity.
In conclusion, Forsters work displays the decisiveness of the authority in every aspect of life, yet it
also highlights the existence and power of subversiveness. The authority in this story is offered to be
technology but the references to other oppressive authorities in human life like religions or governments
exist, as well. It is implied that subversiveness always exist in every condition no matter how hard the
system tries to annihilate it and it turns out to be determining even if it may be weak at the outset.
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