E.M. Forster (1879-1970) was an English novelist and critic. As Darcy O'Brien writes in The World Book Encyclopedia (1981), "His novels show his interest in personal relationships and in the social, psychological, and racial obstacles to such relationships." His novels include A Room with a View (1908), Howards End (1910), and A Passage to India (1924), all of which were made into feature films during a 1990s resurgence of interest in Forster's work. His books of essays and literary criticism include Aspects of the Novel (1927) and Two Cheers for Democracy (1951). Not as well known among Forster's work are his allegorical, fantasy, and science fiction stories, collected in The Celestial Omnibus (1911) and The Eternal Moment (1928). "The Air-Ship" is Part 1 of a longer story, "The Machine Stops," originally published in The Oxford and Cambridge Review in 1909 and collected in The Eternal Moment.
"The Machine Stops" text (including "The Air-Ship")
1. Describe the social, political, and environmental conditions of the future world described in the story. Where and how do people live? What does the social structure seem to be? What has happened to the natural environment? What seem to be the primary shared or mainstream values of this global civilization?
2. When she begins her journey, Vashti is "seized with the terrors of direct experience" (¶ 76). Review the technology of communication and interpersonal relations in the story. What are the Machine's advantages, as seen by Vashti and other citizens? What seem to be the Machine's limitations and disadvantages? What are Kuno's objections to the Machine?
3. In what ways do you think today's Internet information and communication network -- also broadly characterized by individuals in cubicles using electronic tools -- is similar to the Machine in Forster's story? What differences do you detect? How is a sense of community maintained similarly and differently in each case?
4. "How we have advanced, thanks to the Machine!" the passengers in the air-ship chant mechnically and, it seems, ironically as they pass over the Himalayas, unable to remember what snow is. What do you think Forster is trying to say about the Machine, and through the story, about social conditions of the early 20th century? How well do you think his social criticism applies to our own time, on the brink of the 21st century?
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