In “The Machine Stops” by E.M Forster, humans live in The Machine underground due to the air on the “surface” no longer being breathable. In the story the humans completely rely on The Machine for every aspect of life, and rarely see others face-to-face but communicate instead by video-calls. This is an especially relevant story as just a few years ago due to COVID-19 we were also only communicating by video calls. I believe this has allowed us to understand the story through a different lens as we know how important face-to-face human interactions are for our socety.
The story also discusses climate change and how humans have brought this world upon themselves. Currently in the world there are many disastrous and devastating severe weathers, like wildfires and hurricanes. Since, in recent years there have been many more natural devastations due to growing climate issues brought on by humans. This makes the story even more relevant as it opens our eyes to possibilities of what our future could look like in the near-ish future.
This story was originally published in 1909 and since then this story has become more relevant in ways that E.M Forster could have only guessed. The world we are currently living in makes this story seem not so fictional, but as a more realistic possibility of what our future could be if we don’t start to work and act more against climate change.
Hi Cate! I like how you compared different current events (not just COVID) to the story, it really puts things in perspective. I also like how in the last paragraph, you called back to when the story was created, and how E.M Forster kind of predicted the possible future.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I also thought about this story in the context of Covid. Covid did kind of force everyone to "go underground" and become isolated except for video calls. I think this story definitely seems more possible in the real world today than it did when Forester wrote it in 1909, which makes the message even more impressive and impactful.
ReplyDeleteI agree with a lot of what you're saying! Especially since we're so developed regarding technology, you can really see the alignment. I think it makes the entire story a lot scarier for current-day readers since this "horrible" thing is so possible. Forester's writing seems so much more impressive knowing the events that have happened.
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