ABSTRACT
E. M. Forster's story "The Machine Stops" reminds us that it is literary Utopia's shadow, the dystopia, that most often flourished in that the twentieth century. Forster's story therefore stands as an early example of the dystopian maps of social hells that have been with us ever since. Having issued the invitation, the narrator launches into another familiar move with a tour of the world conducted in the mode of the traditional Utopian novel, situating the narrator as the guide and the reader as the visitor. As the travelogue progresses, the narrator's voice fades and the action in the alternative world takes over. But the voiceover recurs with occasional commentary until the crisis at the end of the tale calls it back to a more direct and politically charged role. Contrary to this broad dystopian tendency a variety of "anti-utopian" texts has paralleled these works that shared the cultural ambience of the dystopian imagination throughout the century.
