The science-fiction story "The Machine stops" by E.M. Forster was written in 1909. In the story the author potrays a world thousand of years in the future where people live in the interior of the earth.
At the beginning of the story Kuno calls his mother and tells her that he wants to see her face to face and not through the plate which is a part of the usual communication at that time. His mother is irritated and does not understand him, because she does not see any necessity for it. When Kuno tells her that he wants to visit the surface of the earth she is totally shocked and tries to dissuade him from the idea. The mother and Kuno get into a dispute about the Machines. Because of the mother´s lack of understanding Kuno finishes the conversation by terminating the connection. For a short moment the mother feels lonley, but then she recovers and returns into her life conditioned by technology.
The main characters of the story are Vashti, the mother, and her son Kuno. The mother illustrates the kind of people living in complete agreement with the technological world and whose life is totally influenced by it. For this reason she represents the supporters of the technological revolution. Technology has such a big status in her life that even the relation to her son does not mean very much to her.
In contrast to the mother her son Kuno illustrates the critic of technology and a kind of revolt against a social life made possible only by technological means.

In my opinion the author used the two characters to make clear the problematic situation of the emergence of the means of communication in the 20^th century. In this way he illustrates the fascination which is produced by the technological progress on the one hand, on the other hand he describes the fear of people and their respect for technology. E.M. Forster portrays this situation by moving people’s lives into the interior of the earth. The reason of it is the destruction of the surface of the earth, which makes life impossible otherwise.
Furthermore the author mentions in his short story another consequence of the technological progress. The son wants a personal contact to his mother, but Vashti is satisfied with her artificial contacts. I suppose that the author wants to express that the importance of interpersonal relations is threatened by the emergence of the technical means of communication.
In my opinion the description of the future is a bit exaggerated. The idea of the author that thousands of years in the future when life on earth will be impossible people will live under the surface of the earth, sounds too unrealistic to me. The description of the technological situation in the future is also a bit excessive, but in a certain way Forster has imagined the future of communication as it is now. Nowadays everyone is used to many different means of communication and probably life would almost be inconceivable without them.  (J.S., 11b, March 2005)

"The Machine stops" is a story about a future world such as ours may become, if we continue to rely more and more on machinery. Forster portrays an entirely indoor society. The people in the story live in isolation in a machine which controls all aspects of their daily lives. The machine is much more important to the inhabitants of this future world than our computers and other tools are to us today. It guarantees the life of the inhabitants of that world by providing fresh air, water and food. The importance of the machine is due to this dependence.
Whatever the benefits of the machine, as one can see from the conversation between Vashti and her son, it also affects their lives in a very negative way. Real face-to-face conversation no longer takes place, even between mother and son. The people of that world only place value on man-made things.

But why does everybody live below the surface of our earth? The answer seems simple. The environment was somehow poisoned and made uninhabitable, and as a result the whole human population moved underground to seek safety. This idea of Forster is not absurd at all in our time of increasing damage to the environment and risk of nuclear war. In my opinion Forster´s story is a warning to his and future generations not to lose control over their inventions or to overestimate their importance. He creates a deterrent image in his reader’s minds of how the world could become if we live without any consideration of natural behaviour. I hope this warning will be taken seriously because I believe that communication is one of the most important aspects of life, and it should never be replaced by technical inventions like machines.  (L.K., 11b, March 2005)

The short story "The Machine Stops" by E.M. Forster written in 1909 is about the future of technology and how mankind will be contingent on one machine that controls everything. Because the earth is not habitable anymore, the people live in some kind of machine. The main character of the story is a boy called Kuno, who some day calls his mother Vashti to tell her that he wants to see her, but not through the machine anymore, rather meet her face to face. Vashti who is totally integrated in the technical life is shocked by her son saying something against "The Machine" and tries to argue him out of thinking something like that. Later on he even tells her that he intends visiting the surface of the earth to see the world like people did thousands of years ago. Vashti does not understand how somebody could like to leave the comfortable Machine and walk over the nasty ground of the earth. At the end of the extract the author explains the technical contraptions which are built in the room of Vashti to make life comfortable and allow the inhabitant to do everything without moving out of the room.