Harlan Ellison: Fiction of Ideas

For this week of big ideas, I read two short stories. The first story was one that I recognized as a short story I read two years ago and remembered loving, called “Repent Harlequin” Said the TickTockMan. For both of these short stories, I tried my best to understand the greater meaning but it may have been lost on me. “Repent Harlequin” obviously criticizes totalitarian dictatorship, and makes the point that all it takes is one person with the right amount of courage to spark change among oppression. It is similar to the themes of 1984- and Harlan Ellison even makes that comparison himself- as it is set in a totalitarian dystopia in this case where sticking to schedule it crucial and becomes a matter of life and death. I’d like to believe Harlan Ellison is also making the point that it is okay to enjoy life and care less about the way your life is “supposed” to be structured. That’s what I enjoyed so much about this story the first time I read it and even more the second time.

Since I was already familiar with Harlan Ellison, I decided to read his other short story next: “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream”. I must admit, I found the gory details extremely disturbing from the beginning, but I realize this is essential to the plot and found the premise interesting enough to finish it. A mastercomputer has eradicated the Earth of all humans except for four men and one woman as pets to eternally torture for its own amusement. The AI does this as punishment to the human race as well for having created it to understand everything fully but not be able to actually do anything; the AI finds life meaningless and wants to share that agony with the survivors. At the start of the story, the narrator is essentially devoid of hope for redemption, and by the end shows human compassion as well as an act of defiance by deciding to mercy-kill the four other survivors instead of himself. This leaves him in a far worse situation, except for the small peace he finds in knowing he put the others out of their misery and angered the machine.