Because people live under ground and are being controlled by the machine they have become dependant on it. Kuno is the only one who can see what the machine is doing. While Vashti is saying "do not say bad things about the machine" this shows Vashti is sticking up for the machine and is happy with it controlling her. But she doesnt no its controlling her. Kuno also say's "man made the machine" which is true but nothing can be done about it now.
Technological change and advancement
The world is a machine, this machine has changed there lives in many ways. Thanks to the machine the world is the same all over and the inhabitants have to do nothing because the machine cook's the machine plays the music it even summons them to bed.
Societal change as a result of the advance in technology
‘People were almost exactly alike all over the world’. The advance of this technology has caused a decline of human contact with each other. People are actually fearful of it. ‘Vashti was seized with the terrors of direct experience’. ‘People never touched one another. The custom had become obsolete owing to the machine’. This means that as people talk to each other through the machine all the time so there is no need for people to leave their cells to talk to each other face to face or participate in human contact. ‘The machine clothes us and houses us; through it we speak to one another, through it we see one another, in it we have our being’. People isolate themselves alone with the machine. ‘The clumsy system of public gatherings had been long since abandoned’.
It has become so excessive that people do not even raise their own children. ‘Parents, duties of…cease at the moment of birth’. The machine raises their children. If a child is born that promises to be a strong intelligent adult that could jeopardize the power and control that the machine harnesses it is killed. ‘Each infant was examined at birth, and all who promised undue strength were destroyed’. ‘It was a demerit to be muscular’, although Kuno was strong and thought for himself. ‘His was not a type the machine desired to hand on’. People are more ruled and dependant on the machine than supportive of the machine.
Trying to create a Utopia or perfect world
All emotions have been eradicated by the machine because they are considered dangerous. They lead to conflict and war. “All the fear and superstition that existed once have been destroyed by the machine”. This is supposed to be a Utopia but without emotion people will not be able to take pleasure in the ‘Utopia’ they live in.
The world is also considered perfect because everybody lives in an identical cell where everything is there for them. Everyone is equal. I think the machine is like a communist dictator because it is it that controls the equality among people.
Alienation of an individual from society
Everybody in this society is alienated though nobody ever realizes it with the exception of Kuno. Kuno also realizes that he doesn’t belong in this society. The machine knows he doesn’t belong because he never shows any devotion to it as most individuals in the world.
The machine is very strict about maintaining the society. I know this because in part two of the story Kuno tells his mother that he escaped to the surface of the earth but the machine captured him and brought him back underground.
Failure of the utopian society
The perfect society failed because people let the machine have too much control over their life. People stopped thinking for themselves so they couldn’t do anything about it when the machine started to stop. People wouldn’t believe that it was breaking because it was like a god to them. Vashti was particularly defiant to believe the speculations.
‘It was rumoured that euthanasia, too, was out of order, and that pain had reappeared among men’
Conclusion
Fictional voyage of discovery
Mans faith towards the machine resulted in the collapse of humanity. This discovery was regrettably revealed by society when it was too late to do anything about it.
