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Setting
Definition of Simile
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often use the connecting words "like" or "as," but can also... read full definition
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often use the connecting words "like... read full definition
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often... read full definition
Part 1: The Air-Ship
Explanation and Analysis—Like a Beehive:
The opening line of “The Machine Stops” contains a simile, as seen in the following passage:
Imagine, if you can, a small room, hexagonal in shape like the cell of a bee. It is lighted neither by window nor by lamp, yet it is filled with a soft radiance.
In comparing Vashti’s underground room to a hexagonal cell in a beehive, Forster establishes from the opening paragraph that this story will be looking at the relationship between technology and nature. While beehives are part of the natural world, they are also extremely organized and, in their own way, technological. Similarly, while Vashti’s room is part of advanced underground technology called the Machine, it also contains elements of the natural world, such as the “soft radiance” that lights the room, mimicking the light of day.
It is notable that Forster includes a related simile in the final lines of the story:
As he spoke, the whole city was broken like a honeycomb. An air-ship had sailed in through the vomitory into a ruined wharf. It crashed downwards, exploding as it went, rending gallery after gallery with its wings of steel.
Describing the destruction of the Machine as breaking “like a honeycomb,” Forster harkens back to the opening sentence of the story. Despite the technological perfection of the beehive, he is arguing, it is just as vulnerable as anything else. In some ways, perfect uniformity was the Machine’s downfall—because there was only one control center in charge of all the rooms (or cells), the underground city was more vulnerable rather than less.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Light Like a Golden Sea:
Despite being initially resistant to traveling by air-ship to visit her son Kuno—as she prefers the comforts of her underground room run by the Machine—Vashti ultimately decides to take the trip. When describing Vashti’s experience on board the air-ship, Forster uses a simile and imagery, as seen in the following passage:
[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 air-ship’s motion, just as waves rise and fall, but it advanced steadily, as a tide advances […] A spasm of horror shook her and she rang for the attendant.
The simile here—in which the narrator describes the sun coming through the window as “brimming down the wall, like a golden sea”—captures the beauty of this moment. Vashti has been underground—away from all natural light—for a very long time, and this is an opportunity for her to relish the splendor of being aboveground. It quickly becomes clear, however, that she is not interested in doing so; as Forster describes, using imagery, “A spasm of horror shook her.”
The juxtaposition of Vashti’s “spasm of horror” and the rich visual imagery in this passage (like “a rosy finger of light” and “small pink clouds, swaying against a background of blue”) communicates how deadened Vashti has become to the beauties of nature. After years underground, she has come to appreciate the simulation of nature over the direct experience of it. By the end of the story, of course, she does come to realize the error of her ways.
Related Themes:
Part 3: The Homeless
Explanation and Analysis—Like a Beehive:
The opening line of “The Machine Stops” contains a simile, as seen in the following passage:
Imagine, if you can, a small room, hexagonal in shape like the cell of a bee. It is lighted neither by window nor by lamp, yet it is filled with a soft radiance.
In comparing Vashti’s underground room to a hexagonal cell in a beehive, Forster establishes from the opening paragraph that this story will be looking at the relationship between technology and nature. While beehives are part of the natural world, they are also extremely organized and, in their own way, technological. Similarly, while Vashti’s room is part of advanced underground technology called the Machine, it also contains elements of the natural world, such as the “soft radiance” that lights the room, mimicking the light of day.
It is notable that Forster includes a related simile in the final lines of the story:
As he spoke, the whole city was broken like a honeycomb. An air-ship had sailed in through the vomitory into a ruined wharf. It crashed downwards, exploding as it went, rending gallery after gallery with its wings of steel.
Describing the destruction of the Machine as breaking “like a honeycomb,” Forster harkens back to the opening sentence of the story. Despite the technological perfection of the beehive, he is arguing, it is just as vulnerable as anything else. In some ways, perfect uniformity was the Machine’s downfall—because there was only one control center in charge of all the rooms (or cells), the underground city was more vulnerable rather than less.
Related Themes:
