The Machine Stops

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

Think about the new technologies invented since the start of the 21st century. What tech has become integral to our daily lives? Have these technologies changed our lives for better or worse? What are some common fears and anxieties about the way technology will continue to advance in the future?

Teaching Suggestion: This question connects to the story’s theme of Human Advancement and raises the issue of how technophobia (or at least techno-skepticism) has been in constant dichotomy with the wonder at technological advancements throughout human history and continues today. You might ask students about the tasks their smartphones do for them and the skills or habits they might need if they didn’t have access to current technology. What do we gain and what do we sacrifice? Consider asking students to think about how their parents or other authority figures have attempted to limit their use of technology and why. Often younger generations are dismissive of older generations for their anxieties about newer technology, and this line of questioning will prepare them to see both current anxieties and the anxieties expressed in “The Machine Stops” as a part of a larger continuum.

• This short list article describes some of the major inventions of the first 10 years of the 20th century, including YouTube videos with more information on each one. You might use this list to help students to understand the significance of these new technologies and think about how they could have contributed to the anxieties expressed in “The Machine Stops.”
• This article from Psychology Today discusses some ways current technology fosters anxiety and changes the way we think about ourselves. This might help students recognize the way advancements in technology have shaped thought processes that have become embedded in daily life.
• This encyclopedia article outlines the history of the second industrial revolution and how it changed the world during the era in which Forster wrote “The Machine Stops.”

Discussion and Optional Research

Although E.M. Forster was not typically a writer of science fiction, “The Machine Stops” was one of the earliest examples of technological dystopian fiction, a genre that became more popular with the rise of modernism. What is a dystopia? How does the term arise and differ from the idea of a utopia? What makes a work dystopian, and how do these works function?

Teaching Suggestion: Ask students to think about literature, film, television shows, and other media that depicts the future. Discuss how those works depict the future—are they optimistic, pessimistic, or a mix of both? What are the forces in these worlds that cause societies to fall apart and become dystopian? How realistic do these dystopian worlds seem, and how far are we from realizing them as a society? This question is connected to the previous one, as the movement of dystopian and technological dystopian literature was very much connected to anxieties about technology, and it might be useful to have students research the ideologies and manifestoes that arose with modernism and how technological advances shaped those ideologies. Students could also research and discuss current new or proposed technologies and how those inventions might bring elements of both usefulness and dystopia. This connects to the theme of Human Advancement.    

• This short video, posted by TEDEd, explains the concept of a dystopia and how to recognize its hallmarks. Also posted by TEDEd, this short video discusses science fiction and how it has frequently managed to predict future technologies and developments. Both videos are connected to customizable lesson plans if you decide to expand to teach a larger unit on science fiction or dystopian literature.
• In this episode of Crash Course Literature, John Green discusses George Orwell’s 1984, which was written 40 years after “The Machine Stops” but is one of the most famous works of dystopian literature.