In “The Machine Stops” by E.M. Forster, there is a vision of how the future may be very frightening. In this short story, their are two characters. One who’s name is Kuno and the other, named Vashti. I’ll spare the plot of the story as I’m sure you guys have already read it and I assume we’ll be talking about it in class. As far as my response to it goes, I feel as if it is a story in which it really foreshadows where we are today. In today’s society, many may say that our world is becoming smaller and smaller day by day. Take technology for example. Where were we 20 years ago? We didn’t even know what social network was. We had cell phones but they definitely weren’t “smart”. We couldn’t FaceTime someone from New York to Florida in 2 seconds like we do today. We couldn’t just go on Youtube and type in a movie we want to see. Yes, it makes things a lot easier and more convenient, but it also makes the world smaller and people more lazy. Now relating back to the short story, it sort of predicts the future in a way.
The people in the society have created a machine in which it takes care of their needs and they have started to worship it. They live underground where they are okay with living in little rooms which are basically prison cells. They’ve become so focused, so engaged in being satisfied with this robot that the lack of communication grows largely. It foreshadows how today’s world is. Now of days, all you see on the train is phones , phones and more phones. My dad (who is 63) actually hates how everyone today is glued to their phone and their are very little face to face confrontations anymore. It’s funny how although it is technically legal for the people in the story to go out side, they choose not to because they have become to lazy and confined with themselves. I actually just saw the movie Wall – E a couple days ago and it reminds me of it. In that movie there are people who live inside of a bubble and if they leave it, they might fall prey to harsh climates like predators and such.
The movie Metropolis, truth be told was a bit painful to watch for me because of the fact that is in black and white and a silent movie. It was a bit dull to me and very boring, but besides that, it was very interesting as for as the whole plot goes. It takes place in the future where the rich people rule the entire city while the poorer people have to work hard on making sure the machines that make the city function work. It is similar to “The Machine Stops” because the people have to work underground. The conditions were very inhumane where the boilers would become so hot that it would kill some workers because of it. Watching the movie now, to a lot of people including myself may seem a bit dull, but i can only imagine how mind blowing this movie was for its time. It was made in 1927, so to see all those beautiful visuals of that city must’ve been astonishing.
(testing revision history)
