Machine stops.. but humanity resumes
Does ‘The Machine Stops’ have an optimistic or a pessimistic ending? I think the ending to ‘The Machine Stops’ represents an optimistic ending. Although it’s pessimistic in the sense that most of humanity has just died, in the grand scheme of things it marks a fresh start for people to live outside the constraints of the Machine. There are just so many things about the depictions of the lifestyle within the Machine that indicates a need to massively reform society. At the current state people were living in, it would have been hard to spark any sort of change within the environment the Machine had fostered. People had grown weak and generally satisfied with their lives, so only a forced massive reform would have been able to save humanity in the long run. The beginning of the story depicts a world where the majority of people are complacent and content, but any outside perspective can immediately identify the monotonous lifestyle the people are living. Their lives are highly regulated,...