In the society we live in today, there are people around us who are willing to sacrifice another life to maintain one's current goal or position. Ray Bradbury's short story "The Flying Machine" is about an Emperor in China in the year A.D. 400 who discovers a man has invented a flying machine resembling a dragon in the sky above the Great Wall of China. The Emperor demands that the man must be put to death because the Emperor is afraid (use better word: intimidated, perplexed, alarmed) of the man's machine. In this story, the Emperor, Yuan, (or just emperor Yuan without "the") sacrifices the inventor, so that he could keep his dictated world untouchable along with his place in power. The author directs us to believe some people would do anything, even abuse one's power, to keep what one already has; however these sacrifices may also be required under a difficult situation. The Emperor fears this machine will make him lose all that is beautiful around him as well as power if he agrees to accept the beauty of the innovation. His last fear is that an enemy may devise a similar flying machine to invade the Great Wall of China. The Emperor strongly feels that some inventions should be suppressed to avoid future danger of his perfect "Mechanical Garden".
One of the threats that the inventor creates to the Emperor is the thought that if the word of the invention spreads, his people will find out "how free one feels" (3) in the sky and will not return to obey him. As a dictator, the Emperor forces everyone to believe he is the most powerful person and that no one should ruin his world, the ideal "mechanical garden", by adding or removing components from it. He did not want to let one single invention to damage the perfect empire that he owns. Also, the man who flew "[has] found beauty" (3) in the sky. (Sounds funny - flew it?) The flight in the story represents freedom and the ability to escape.
