I found it very interesting because Forster reminded me of Nietzsche short story “Thus spoke Zarathustra”, where he spoke off the “undermen”. It seems for most people in this society freedom is a topic not of interest for they reject earthly desires. Those who reject the ideals of “The Machine” are at risk of homelessness which stands for death. For a room with perfection people now lost the right to raise their children, decide where to live, and travel freely onto the surface. While humans have become more advanced they have now bred a society refusing to change due to their arrogance in ” The Machine”. People now lack physical strength and share interest in only being in the machine. Humans have become very similar due to the changes made. He creates a society that strives for perfection of the mind yet finds no natural ideas. Forster seems to be hinting that this society lacks the foundation of human thought since their is no natural stimulus. What ends up happening is that many of the citizens complain of a lack of originality or ideas. The society has completely devoted itself to the goal of gaining knowledge through the use of the machine which eliminates all work. Humans do interact with each other but through the machine in hopes of discovering, gaining or improving upon ideas. They also avoid interacting face to face with each other and don’t like to leave their rooms, since these rooms are very advanced and perfect humans have all of their needs given to them. Humans were taught and bred (literally bred) to fear or not be interested in ever returning to the earths surface. Through out the story Forster releases tidbits of details that describe background information but mainly focuses on the daily lives of the average citizens in order to inform us and keep the story going. The sci-fi short story was originally published in 1909, while the story is over a century old i still found it very interesting and felt that the characters could very easily resemble exaggerated versions of us (for all I know it could happen!). Forster uses his plot to describe what it means to be a human and the importance of our daily lives.
From the first few pages we see that humanity now spend their lives isolated in rooms interacting through holograms and messages showing a lack of human connection. The short story takes place in a dystopian future where mankind has fled under the earths surface to live in what they call “The Machine”. Hello again classmates and anyone else following our posts! This week we were assigned to read “The Machine Stops” by E.M.
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