Who Is E. M. Forster's 'The Machine Stops'?

By 1909 many technological inventions that are still used today had already been invented. At the same time, however, there was still so much that the world had not yet seen nor expected. E.M. Forster, realizing the longevity of the era of technology, wrote “The Machine Stops,” in which he imagined a futuristic world entirely consumed by “The Machine”—a world that had witnessed incredible technological advances, but had also seen the almost complete reversal of human social skills. Forster uses this fictional story as a medium to deliver his claim that technology will ultimately cause humans to be completely anti-social beings. Building and maintaining friendships is something that is commonly regarded as an essential human social experience. …show more content…
Parents know their children like no one else does; they feed them, care for them, watch them grow, and support them and their interests indefinitely. However, in “The Machine Stops,” even this special relationship is reduced to nearly nothing according to a regulation from the book of the Machine that states: “Parents, duties of, cease at the moment of birth” (Forster 114). The fact that parents must receive instruction from a book about what their responsibility is with regards to their own children shows that the parent-child relationship in this dystopian world is purely mechanical and emotionless. The words from the book make it clear that men are simply devices used to impregnate women, and likewise women are nothing more than devices for producing children. It is as though they, too, have become cold, heartless machines. Forster fears that if technology’s involvement in human lives grows to be too overbearing, it will ruin the intimacy of some of the most important social relationships, such as that of parents and their