Literary notes about machinery (AI summary)
The word “machinery” in literature has proven to be a versatile term, adapting its meaning to both concrete objects and abstract systems. In some texts, it denotes literal mechanical devices—from the depiction of new farm machinery in domestic settings ([1]) to detailed accounts of coffee-roasting, coffee-plantation, and industrial machinery ([2], [3], [4], [5]). In other instances, authors use “machinery” metaphorically to evoke broader themes: Hardy’s creaking machinery hints at an impending, almost living force ([6]), while Wells’s “angry whirr” suggests an autonomous, even ominous presence ([7]). Moreover, the term often symbolizes the complex apparatus of society and state—underscored in passages about political or legal structures ([8], [9])—or serves as a metaphor for the inexorable forces in human affairs and progress ([10], [11]). In each context, “machinery” enriches the narrative, bridging the gap between the tangible mechanisms of industry and the intangible workings of social order and fate.
- Old Joe starts out once in a while to buy her a present and brings home some new kind of farm machinery.
— from Anne's House of Dreams by L. M. Montgomery - In 1902, the first fancy duplex paper bag made by machinery from a roll of paper was produced by the Union Bag & Paper Corporation.
— from All About Coffee by William H. Ukers - 1850—John Gordon & Co. begin the manufacture of coffee-plantation machinery in London.
— from All About Coffee by William H. Ukers - In 1878, Jabez Burns, the coffee-machinery man, founded the Spice Mill , the first publication in America devoted to the coffee and spice trades.
— from All About Coffee by William H. Ukers - The manufacture of machinery required in the coffee business began in the eighteenth century.
— from All About Coffee by William H. Ukers - There was a creaking of machinery behind, and some of the young ones turned their heads.
— from Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy - and the angry whirr of the machinery seemed to answer him.
— from The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories by H. G. Wells - The most obvious fact about social control is the machinery by which laws are made and enforced, that is, the legislature, the courts, and the police.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. Burgess and Robert Ezra Park - But the huge machinery of the State quells the individual and makes him decline to be answerable for his own deed (obedience, loyalty, etc.).
— from The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. Book III and IV by Nietzsche - He would need, in a word, heroic figures and supernatural machinery.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana - The wildness and supernatural machinery of Macbeth, was a pledge that it could contain little directly connected with our present circumstances.
— from The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
