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The Book, an elaborate user’s manual for the Machine, symbolizes the dangers of blind faith. In the dystopian society of “The Machine Stops,” people live underground because they Earth’s surface is apparently no longer habitable, and the complex technological system known as the Machine ostensibly provides them with all their needs (air, food, shelter, communication, entertainment). Consequently, people have come to religiously worship the Machine as something mysterious and all-powerful, creating an elaborate belief system that substitutes a piece of technology for a deity and treats the Book as is its sacred text. Vashti’s attitude toward the Book is typical of a fanatically religious person: she finds a great sense of security in the Book, believing that it contains everything she could ever need to know. The Book becomes the object of Vashti’s prayers, as she kisses it and murmurs “O Machine!” whenever she is in distress.
But the sense of security that the Book provides is clearly misguided. For one, blind worship of the Book distracts humanity from the question they should have been asking all along: namely, whether the Machine is actually good for them. By labeling any criticism of the Machine as sacrilege, the Book encourages humanity to embrace a technology that limits them more than it helps them. The Machine ostensibly protects them, but it also cuts them off from authentic human connection, the beauty of the natural world, and their own emotions. Second, the Book does not provide a true understanding of how the Machine actually works, which is a huge problem, since humanity relies on the Machine for survival. Toward the end of the story, the Machine begins to break down, and for humanity to survive, they need to fix it. But no one knows how, because the Book only explains how to operate the Machine, not how it functions on a more fundamental level. The knowledge that the Book provides, then, is useful only so long as the Machine continues to function—something that this society took for granted until it was too late to stop the Machine’s collapse. The Machine’s collapse kills everyone who lives underground, driving home the message that blind faith in any system can be disastrous.
The Book Quotes in The Machine Stops
The The Machine Stops quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Book. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Part 2: The Mending Apparatus
Quotes
She might well declare that the visit was superfluous. The buttons, the knobs, the reading-desk with the Book, the temperature, the atmosphere, the illumination—all were exactly the same. And if Kuno himself, flesh of her flesh, stood close beside her at last, what profit was there in that? She was too well-bred to shake him by the hand.
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Part 3: The Homeless
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“The Machine,” they exclaimed, “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.” And before long this allocution was printed on the first page of the Book, and in subsequent editions the ritual swelled into a complicated system of praise and prayer. 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 it as divine.
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The Book Symbol Timeline in The Machine Stops
The timeline below shows where the symbol The Book appears in The Machine Stops. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part 1: The Air-Ship
Vashti picks up the Book of the Machine lying beside her on the reading-desk. It contains instructions for everything she...
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...he will not talk to her until she comes to visit him. She consults the Book again and becomes agitated. She presses a button to open her door and looks down...
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...Kuno desires. She wonders what Kuno meant by saying “something tremendous might happen.” Clasping the Book, she opens the door to the tunnel and summons a car.
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...people. As the passengers board the air-ship, the man in front of Vashti drops his Book. This disturbs all of the passengers, because they are used to the floors in their...
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...enraged to feel that she is stuck with an inferior cabin. Frightened, Vashti caresses her Book and murmurs “O Machine! O Machine!” to comfort herself.
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...nurseries to inhabit the rooms of people who have died. The man who dropped his Book is traveling back home after fathering a child. Vashti is the only passenger who is...
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Part 2: The Mending Apparatus
...all religion and superstition. She insists it is impossible to find a new way out—the Book says that exit is only possible through the vomitories, which require a permit. But Kuno...
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Part 3: The Homeless
...more drastic measures, such as establishing a dictatorship. As panic grows, people pray to their Books, which contain the “proofs of the Machine’s omnipotence.” There are rumors of hope that the...
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...is still light and air in the room, and as long as she has her Book, there is still security.
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...“wait for the end.” Her room disintegrates, and the light fades. She prays to the Book, but the darkness becomes complete, and the air begins to dissipate. Turning desperate, she screams,...
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