The Machine Stops

E.M. Forster’s The Machine Stops is a prescient and chilling short story that imagines a future where humanity lives in isolation, dependent on technology for all needs—and cut off from real connection. This Trinity Forum Reading raises urgent questions about progress, control, and what it means to be truly human. A compelling exploration for our increasingly digital age.

This Reading features a story written in 1909 that is eerily prophetic, anticipating airplanes, videophones, and even the Internet. Written by E. M. Forster (author of Room with a View and Passage to India), "The Machine Stops" depicts a future society utterly reliant on one large mechanical system that feeds, bathes, transports entertains and educates its citizens. The Machine is so revered that to speak against it or go against its ways, could mean certain exile.

While Forster's fictional society is doomed, his century-old story raises questions meaningful to us today. Is increasing dependence on technology dangerous? How much technology is too much? While blessed with innovations, how can we overcome some of the challenges technology presents? Dan Russ addresses some of these current issues in his foreword.