The Power of a Single Civilian
by Ellie Lunsford
In E.M. Forster's short story, The Machine Stops, the readers are placed into a futuristic, dystopian world. In Forster's fictional world, humanity lives below the Earth's surface in a honeycomb-like structure with each person dwelling in their own hexagonal room. Throughout this narrative, one word which is continuously repeated by one of the main characters, Vashti, is "isolation." Vashti often referred to isolating herself by turning off any forms of incoming communication from her friends and family, which she was able to receive through The Machine. This concept of isolation is something that is actually relevant in today's society, as civilians are being pushed to isolate themselves in the comforts of their own homes in order to protect themselves and others from the spread of COVID-19. In this sense, I do not think that Forster's imagined world is too different from our own, or what our own may begin to look like. With current technologies, people are able to isolate themselves from other individuals, all while still staying in contact with friends and family through the usage of smartphones, computers, tablets, and many more prominent technologies. And I think that as technology continues to invent new ways that allow us to easily connect to others virtually, humans will only begin to lose that face-to-face contact more and more each day.
On the other hand, I think that the dystopia described in The Machine Stops is actually very unrealistic compared to what I believe our world will turn into in the future. As I was reading through this short story I kept catching myself thinking that Vashti's son, Kuno, reminded me of the main character in George Orwell's novel, 1984. These two characters reminded me of each other because they were both able to see beyond the omniscient powers which governed them and began to produce personal thoughts. Therefore, even though I do think that Forster may be correct about the fact that, in the very distant future, some form of advanced technology will have an immense amount of control over civilization (as we are already starting to see with the power of smartphones), I also believe that there will always be outliers such as Konu and Winston Smith which will never succumb to total control over their thoughts and actions. These two characters were able to show the audience how, even with all of the resources that their prospective "governments" have access to, it takes a tremendous amount of time and effort to stop the "unlawful" thinking of a single civilian. Because of this concept, both Orwell and Forster's works were actually able to give me a sense of hope. Hope that even if an omniscient and omnipotent governing party is going to end up ruling over the human race in the distant future, there will always be individual's out there who are able to see beyond the totalitarian rule and act out, making a difference for themselves and those around them.