Student worksheet · Science-fiction story in three parts
The Machine Stops
E. M. Forster · 1909 · 12,260 words
Name ________________________ Date ________________________
Answer in complete sentences. Give source lines, chapters, parts or staves with each response.
- In Part I, compare Vashti’s first exchange with Kuno and the unfamiliar experience on the airship. Identify one specific physical inconvenience in each.
- Reconstruct Kuno’s route to the surface and his return. Identify what the Book can explain and what only his body teaches him.
- How do a lecture and the ritual surrounding the Book each turn mediated knowledge into authority? Locate them in their narrative context.
- Distinguish an early change in service quality from a late failure that puts lives in immediate danger. How do people respond to each?
- What exactly can Vashti and Kuno see or know at the end? Separate what the text shows from a prediction about survivors.
Essay
How does Forster stage a disagreement about what counts as a good idea? Test the defense of mediated knowledge against Kuno’s experience and the story’s ending.
Write at least 650 words on separate pages. Develop a thesis, interpret three located passages from different parts of the text, and address a serious counterreading.