"The Machine Stops" 12. PART A: Consider the silence at the end of the story. How is this detail important to the development of the passage’s central ideas?

A Silence means the Machine has officially stopped, supporting the idea that technology has its limits.

B Silence literally and figuratively means death when the Machine stops: both the end of individual lives and the collapse of human civilization.

C Silence represents the unknown, like the darkness, which also comes when the Machine stops.

D Silence means the Machine has officially stopped, and with it the destruction of faith and establishment of an indifferent universe.