Reimagining “The Machine Stops” through the eyes of Kuno
My mother has fallen victim to the chains of religious attachment towards something void of flesh and blood. She has no autonomy to do anything for herself, and relies on the machine for everything, like an infant clinging to its mother. I envy her. She sees no fallacies within her life. I must pose the question, how can I- her kin- possess these unnatural urges to escape? I cannot fathom the possibility of a life meaningless and void of human interaction. I yearn to be a monkey, those furry creatures with long limbs and hairy bodies. On my screen they seem so free, so unbound and fulfilled. I desire a life of survival, not a life where I am coddled. I feel like an alien, trapped inside a glass tomb, where all faces peering down, are looking at the velvet interior, not the foreign creature inside.
The tunnels are lit. I had made numerous trips, desperate to find an opening. A tiny beast clawed my stomach apart with the notion there had to be a way out. Upon my instincts, I came across a lit tunnel. Darkness is the exception to artificial light. Therefore, finding a small, black gap was the catalyst to my journey above the surface. Day after day I revisited the continually widening gap until I was able to fit through the hole. Regardless of my pioneering discovery, I bore myself recalling my triumphs, knowing they would have no effect on my mother.
Not much time has elapsed since I have been outside. Although it is perfectly legal for me to have gone, given I had an Egression Permit- but I found a way of my own. I was caught, and as a result, I have been threatened with homelessness. They said homelessness is the displacement of an individual, victim to the outside air. It is believed exposure to the air without a respirator results in death. Horrific, yet I feel a strange sense of relief. No matter how long the moment is, when I breathe in the outside air I align my spirit with the one of the earth. No matter how long, even if just for one second, I will be where I have always meant to be.
I cannot bear to look at my mother through the screen and tell her this news, only to hang up and leave her isolated within that rigid hexagon. My mother must make the journey on the airship to come see me in person. I must intervene within her deification of the machine. Once she comes, I will bear the news of the threat homelessness. I will share my story, and she will listen- I will make her listen.
Just as I had expected, my mother has many qualms with my journey of discovery and the salvation of man. What I am surprised by is how she listened to everything I had to share with her. My mother tends to grow impatient, seeing as how the machine has continuously mitigated her attention span and increased her desire for intellectual stimulation. I know the future of humanity relies on the extinction of the machine, and I will be the force of change to see man prevail over man's creation. I must save my mother and the countless souls lost to the confining aura of the machine, no matter how much must be sacrificed.
Kuno’s character was the one part of the world in “The Machine Stops” that I wish Forster had spent more time on, since we don’t know that much about him, except that he wants to go aboveground. I really liked your approach to showing Kuno’s thoughts through a stream of consciousness about his world and what he wishes he could change about it. I also liked your twist ending with Kuno hinted at being the person behind the destruction of the machine with the goal to save humanity, even if he had to kill everyone living under the Machine’s control to accomplish this goal. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI liked how you filled in many of the gaps within the story with Kuno's perspective. It gives his character more depth and backstory, which is something Forster didn't really do. The descriptions of Kuno's interactions with his mother are very well written too!
ReplyDeleteYour Kuno still sees the world as redeemable, something that I really like about your imagining of his perspective. This is certainly on-brand - I cannot picture Kuno giving himself over to a fatalist mindset, and I think that he would absolutely see himself as the "force of change to see man prevail over man's creation." This creates a nice character arc for Kuno, because he retains the idea that society will be redeemed through the last sentences of the story. Though his world is crashing down around him, he never loses the optimistic outlook that you captured here.
ReplyDeleteI feel like this is really accurate to how I would interpret Kuno to think. I like the part where you talked about him wanting to be a monkey, I feel like it fits well with the broader style of the story. I also like the part where you say " I will be where I have always meant to be", because I feel like it really captures Kuno's mentality and adds reasoning for his actions, giving his character a greater depth than was expressed in the story.
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate your take on Kuno's perspective! I especially like that you emphasized a subtler part of Kuno's "rebellion" other than just the fact that he dislikes the Machine and wants to go outside--the fact that he actually *cares* about his mother. He feels concern for her, and he wants her to listen to him rather than just allowing her to "rot" within the confines of her cell. Forster's dystopia actually discourages human connection, so this was a great way of laying out yet another difference between Kuno and all the others in his society. Great work!
ReplyDeleteGreat post! As someone who focused a lot on Kuno's character in my own post, I was interested in the perspective you gave him. However, you went much more into depth with how he thought about things such as his exploration of the outside world than I did. I was especially interested in how you talked about how Kuno still has a spark of hope for the future of humanity, as Forster's portrayal of him leads one to think otherwise. Overall, you did a great job giving Kuno much more depth than he had in the original story.
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