The Machine Stops

I enjoyed this short story by E.M Foster. Its a story that can be related to in many ways. Foster creates this story that is full of technology and new inventions. Its very scary but yet fascinating to see how similar it is to our society now. We can see a big message already just in the first part of the story when Kuno tries to communicate with his mother. She used the term “isolate myself” when she actually went on to speak to him. The way she isolated herself was by turning of her lights, and “isolating” herself from all her technology. Shouldn’t it be the opposite. Just in the begging of the story with this use of idea Foster lets us know how important technology is for the characters of the story. In our current society we usually “isolate” ourselves when we are going to be far away from human life. But due to all this technological equipment we acquire daily we have lost a lot of our social interactions with one another.Just in the begging of the story a true current life situation catch my attention. I agree completely and although we have no yet gotten to that point like Kunos mother in my belief we are a short step from living like that. Day my day we dig ourselves to text, receive emails, play on our phones and have technology due many things for us. Most of our work involves a mechanical equimpent . Its like we are already falling under the power of technology. Although we may not realize this we probably text more than we talk to someone on the phone or in person.

Another interesting idea that also shows how from 1990 to know we have actually turned into that world that Foster wrote about. When Kuno speaks to his mother about visiting the surface of the earth. His mother refers to the earth as the horrible “brown earth, and sea, and the starts”. With all the machinery that we have and all the new factories our earth has fallen apart. It has gone from beauty to destruction. Foster predicted in the “The machine Stops” how our life would turn into know due to the technology advancement. Creating a misfortune for us, when in our belief we only though i would make our life better and easier.

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