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"""The Machine Stops"" is Only a Start",,"I was always a voracious reader with a preference for fiction. My family made regular trips to the library growing up, so I had a never-ending supply of books at hand. Yet, one story I read in my high school British Literature class stands out as influential: E. M. Forster’s short story ""The Machine Stops."" The story itself captivated me. In it, humanity lives underground, reliant on “the machine” for all means of life. There is no need to visit others face to face: all communication is carried out through video conferencing and messaging systems. There is no need to leave one’s room or rely on one’s own muscles for support: everything needed is delivered, including air to breathe. One young man is dissatisfied with this life. He develops his strength by walking the hallway and eventually visits the surface, wearing protective gear. Throughout the story it is palpable how much humanity loses in giving up a connection to each other and nature and in rejecting self-reliance. The other characters, however, don’t realize their weakness until the day the tragic machine stops.
This is the earliest book I remember prompting me to think in depth about the human condition and about what we might need for fulfilling and flourishing lives. Forster’s story didn’t just entertain me; it promoted an interest in questions that continue to vex me and which I now pursue through philosophy. It was also one of the first ‘school assigned books’ that made me want to learn about the author’s life and read everything else the author had written. Forster is still one of my favorite authors. Although none of his novels are science fiction, as ""The Machine Stops"" is, all his writing depicts the melancholic beauty of humans in search of authenticity. But it didn’t stop there. Most of Forster’s novels have been adapted to films, and in pursuing those I developed a more general love of Merchant Ivory films. My friends may tease me for being moved by “sweeping British landscapes and gents leaning on mantles,” but for someone who grew up in the working class Midwest, these movies and Forster’s novels helped open new worlds to me and nurtured questions and concerns that have followed me over the years.
","E.M. Forster","""The Machine Stops""",,,"Dawn Jacob, Ph.D. student in Philosophy",,,,,,machine-stops-only-start,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"NHC Graduate Student Summer Residency ","Books & Reading,Dystopian Fiction,Forster, E.M.,Literature,Modernism,Philosophy,Science Fiction,Short Stories",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/18/469/tunnel-3233082_640.jpg,Text,"Graduate Student Residents 2021",1,0
"Reflecting on Reality Through Fiction",,"One of my most memorable humanities moments came during a period of my life where I was not enrolled in any academic institution, but instead working full-time in a secretarial position in the private sector. It was during this time, shortly after President Donald Trump’s election, that I first read Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Even during my undergraduate education, I had been minimally exposed to feminist critiques and gender studies, despite receiving both an anthropology and a humanities degree. For much of my own life I had done my best to ignore the way in which being a woman affected the way I moved through the world, but as I read through The Handmaid’s Tale I experienced a fundamental shift in how I viewed myself and society within the United States.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the book, The Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian novel that takes place in a United States that has been taken over by a new state called Gilead. In this dystopian world, the birth rate has plummeted and fertility is rare among women globally. Part of Gilead’s intention in taking over the United States was done for the sake of taking control of women’s reproductive capacity in order to maximize the potential of any and all fertile women by making them sex slaves to the most politically powerful men in the country.
Gilead is a strictly hierarchical structure in which men occupy all political positions of power and women serve exclusively in domestic or sexual roles. The only exceptions to these assigned positions are women deemed as “unwomen,” who are sent to work and die in radioactive wastelands. To be deemed an “unwoman,” a woman would first need to be infertile and secondly would have been someone whose identity put them in conflict with Gilead’s ideals, such as an academic in the humanities.
The book’s primary plot follows the life of Offred, who was a “handmaid,” a woman selected as a sex slave because of her ability to bear children. As a read through Offred’s harrowing story I began to feel overwhelmingly vulnerable to social and political changes happening around me in the United States. Suddenly my identity as a woman was something I needed to contend with and think about constantly in my understanding of how I operated within society.
Although I had been reminded repeatedly in college about women’s absence in places of power and in our understanding of history, it was not until reading The Handmaid’s Tale that I learned to appreciate the implications of these absences. Something about the horror and vulnerability I felt from reading the book made issues relating to gender feel far more pressing then they ever had before. Instead of trying to push against gender inequalities and sexism by ignoring it, I began treating gender as an essential part to every story in history and society at large.","Margaret Atwood","The Handmaid's Tale",,2018,"Clara Bergamini, 27, graduate student",,,,,,reflecting-reality-through-fiction,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"NHC Virtual Graduate Student Residency 2021","Atwood, Margaret,Dystopian Fiction,Gender Inequality,Handmaid's Tale,Literature,Literature Appreciation,Self-Realization,Women's and Gender Studies",https://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/18/464/HM_Handmaid_Tale_Image.jpg,Text,"Graduate Student Residents 2021",1,0