Questions about dystopia: Please answer the followings questions about E. M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops”. Each answer should use details in the story. 1. What makes this story dystopian? How is this world different from our own? How is it similar? 2. How are people in the story different from us? How are people in the story similar to us? 3. How do politics shape the lives and personalities of people in the story? 4. How is language shaped or warped by the world in which it is practiced?

In "The Machine Stops," E.M. Forster tells the tale of a mother and son who live in separate compartments across the world from each other. The bulk of the population lives in individual units under the surface of the Earth and is tended to by something called the Machine, which provides sustenance, entertainment, and connection. Kuno and his mother, Vashti, talk about the supposedly uninhabitable surface of the world during one of their rare visits. Later, the Machine breaks down even as people develop a religion that considers it an omnipotent being, and the people in charge fail to fix it. The story ends with much of the population, including Vashti and Kuno, dying as the Machine fails.
1. What makes this story dystopian? How is this world different from our own? How is it similar?A dystopian story is one set in a world where people are oppressed, and things are usually not good. Often the societies are characterized by a small, wealthy upper class that has access to resources and a large lower class living in poverty or illness. While people in "The Machine Stops" still live on the same planet, they live below the ground and receive sustenance and communication via the Machine. They are governed by the committee that works with the machine. People still have friends and family, but they communicate with video messaging and text messaging and rarely meet in person. Scientific and technological advances have allowed people to control the weather and the night and day to some extent. Vashti later thinks that the silence when the machine stops is going to kill her; the narrator says that thousands did die from it because they were surrounded by noise their whole lives.
2. How are people in the story different from us? How are people in the story similar to us?
People still have friends and outside interests, but they only explore them via the Machine and technology. People still flock to religion, but the religion in the story begins to focus on the Machine. Though the Machine was created by people and is slowly breaking down, people come to see it as an omnipotent God. People in the story still give birth naturally as well, but the children are then given to public nurseries where parents can visit them. Once the child is old enough, they are assigned their own room. Kuno's room is on the other side of the world from his mother, Vashti. The book of the Machine says that parental duties stop as soon as the child is born. The committee that governs everyone for the Machine decides whether or not people can become parents as well.
3. How do politics shape the lives and personalities of people in the story?
People are governed by the Machine and the Central Committee. Kuno explains that he tried to go to the surface of the Earth—where he claims people live—but was brought back to his room. Every rule and procedure put in place is designed to keep people isolated and alone with only technology to connect them to the outside world. Vashti even feels like her bed is too big because her entire life has been contained, and the idea of something as large as a bed is not comforting. This is the world created by the Machine and by the people who built the Machine to govern the world. People are scared and isolationist. They are unused to being in the same space as each other or addressing each other directly. They believe that exposure to the air kills them, which is why disobedience is punished with Homelessness—which entails being expelled from the living areas.
4. How is language shaped or warped by the world in which it is practiced?
When Vashti is traveling to meet with Kuno, the stewardess calls the land below them Asia. This surprises and confuses Vashti, who is used to different mechanical names. The stewardess says, "I have got into the habit of calling places over which I pass by their unmechanical names." She tells Vashti to remember that ancient names were dictated by the people who lived in those times. She says that they are more advanced now and thankful for it; she says old civilizations called the Himalayas the roof of the world because they did not have the same understanding of science and space that they do in modern times. People also do not understand the concept of the Machine stopping. A friend of Vashti says that "the phrase conveys nothing to me."