Evaluating this we can see how our connection with nature is leaving slowly from the past to The future, from the woods to the Surface of the earth.
As we know from the three short stories E. M. Forster is particularly keen on Greece and Italy. This a major effect on Forsters view. He thinks of them as the creators of nature and the Gods. And as the Gods created humans we can see where that leads. Researching Forster’s life I found that that during his life he had the freedom to travel a lot. He liked to travel to Greece and Italy in particular and this is probably how he got his knowledge and passion for the two countries. As well as Italy and Greece he travelled and lived in India for a little while. We can see how this reflects on Nature. As we know India is a relatively poor country and they would not have the same urban life as England as well as the technology, which England had. India also industrialised later than England so Forster probably went there to leave Industrial life and go back to nature for a while.
However he is particularly keen on Italy and Greece because they are probably the only two countries, which have an unexplainable mythological way at looking at the world and at life, leaving the English characters looking very stubborn and shallow.
Although they are relatively urbanised they still keep that nature passion within the country. These nature passions still remain in Historic buildings and remembrance monuments in both countries.
Building on this ground, we know that a mythological creature called Pan appears in all three stores. Although this Faun does different things in each story he stands for the same meaning.
Forster has put Pan in each of these stories as a God or Mother Nature. As in Greece they have gods of different things such as God of the sea or God of Love, Forster has put Pan as God of Nature. In each of the stories one person who is completely against nature comes into contact with Pan who inspires them in a way so they simply fall in love with nature shocking everyone else. Such as Eustace in a Story of Panic, The Narrator in The Curates Friend and Kuno in The Machine Stops although When the story starts in The Machine Stops Kuno is already in touch with nature so he probably came into contact with Pan off the story.
His Dangers and views of the consequences of not being in touch with nature can be translated to be a bit extreme but nevertheless show his determination and effort to show us what humankind is really like as well as his character of the subject, such as when Eustace gets sent to his room after he is in touch with nature he cry’s and complains it is too small as well as Genaro the waiter which Eustace shares his touchability with warns the adults that if they keep him in the room he will die which
almost happened when they both jumped out of the window while Genaro got killed but Eustace got saved by an olive tree which is trying to show how nature saved Eustace’s life. As well as in The Machine Stops when
the Machine breaks and Vashti and her son Kuno both get killed when the machine blows up.
Knowing this we will now look at the effects on the people getting in touch with nature. As we already know in Each story someone changes their attitude towards nature from negative to positive. In a Story of Panic Eustace starts of by being a boring boy with no talents or major interests. He cant swim is not academic at school and is certainly not good at sports. He then changes his attitude after coming into contact with Pan and is then very jumpy, happy, hyper and has likes lots of physical activity. He sings and hums and cannot get enough of nature even waking up at 4am to go to the garden and sing. It is almost as if he had a new soul and was a new boy.
In the Curates Friend The Narrator comes into contact with Pan he thinks of him at first as a devil because he is a Christian curate and dislikes Pagan creatures but then finds that he is the only one that can talk to Pan and changes his attitude towards it. Not only that, he finds when he is at one with nature he can feel and talk to nature as well.
Finally in The Machine Stops Kuno somehow finds an interest and passion in Nature and is determined to risk his life to find out more about it and to live it.
Evaluating this we can see that nature does something to humans, giving them a determination, which is unbelievably immense. If humans could use this effort and determination they could do anything they wanted. Unfortunately humans have used their knowledge in the wrong
way according to Forster.
As well as getting in touch with nature there is also usually one person which stands for the majority of the population which in this case means, ignorant, stubborn, to urbanised, relies on urbanism too much and are usually English!
In The Story of a Panic This person in Mr Sandbach who breaks Eustace’s pipe which was his lead to nature and who is a Christian repressive of pagan beliefs. In The Curates friend this person is Emily’s mother who even when having a picnic cannot sit on the grass because she doesn’t want to get too close to nature and must use a carpet. Finally In The Machine stops this person is Vashti who does not want to move from her home and technology even to visit her son and is even amazed when one human touched another human and was surprised when she had to pick up her belongings of the floor because she was so used to her machine picking it up for her.
As we can see they all have similar effects on them however Forster is trying to put through a view of what do people lose if they don’t get in touch with nature and what do people get if they do?
Those who don’t get in touch with nature lose their religion and soul as well as their ticket to life inside them backed up by their bitter attitude towards it. It is as if they are “just living” for the sake of living with no purpose or meaning in or for life. Such as they way Vashti acts in The Machine Stops as if she has no personality except being stubborn.
As mentioned before Forster sees religion and especially Christianity as hostile (dangerous or the enemy). This could be for a number of reasons.
Firstly, religion and nature are two different things, and the way Forster writes shows that he believes that you should follow only one of them. Either religion or nature. He thinks that religion gets in the way of
Nature and your full soul should be with nature not half with religion and half with nature. To him nature is a religion but a different type of religion. Not one in which people worship things they haven’t seen one in which you are equal, at one and can see the thing you worship, Nature.
We can see how Forster dislikes Christianity from Forster’s love of mythology and especially mythological creatures such as Pan the Faun. Unfortunately Christians and their beliefs dislike Paganism and their beliefs so therefore Forster dislikes Christianity. Such as In The Curates Friend, The Christian Curate came in contact with The faun and the Faun changed him completely. This shows that Forster thinks that Christian beliefs should change and how he thinks that religion is going in the other way of nature, which may seem strange since religion backs up how The world was formed.
As we can see from this essay Forster is initiating a warning to humankind. We can see that Forster wants us to be more in contact with nature in order to mature our souls and spirits. He sees that people are just living for the sake of living having no purpose in life and is trying to threaten us or give us a warning that danger lies ahead if we carry on this way, such as The ending of The Machine Stops when Vashti and her son Kuno try to reach the surface of the Earth but don’t make it in time because the machine breaks and blows up and so they end up dieing by the thing in which the lived and relied on or so many years.
I can safely tell you that the most important message Forster is trying to tell us for these three stories and possibly the rest of his nature based story is “Technology will fail us, and Nature wont.”
