Intro
If you have ever read Harlan Ellison, you have probably heard of his infamous short story title, “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.” By the end of this blog post, you will understand why this story is a classic and remains relevant today.
Credited pdf from City Tech Open Lab: check out this 11-page short story now!
Harlan Ellison's Writing
“He was as caustic and pugnacious in person as he was on the page…” –Britannica.comÂ
Ellison was born in 1934 in Cleveland, Ohio, and grew in popularity with his science fiction short stories, film scripts, novels, and essays revolving around dystopian advanced technology and the theme of morality.Â
Inspiration Behind “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream”
Ellison was obsessed with the absolute idea of death, and his short stories mirrored this fact with humorous violence. He actually served in the U.S. Army and advocated against the Vietnam War and unfair publishing practices.Â
Inspired by the onset Cold War, Ellison wrote this short story to expose how competition among countries can lead to advanced technologies that do more harm than good.
The famous computer AM in this short story is displayed as human-hating, which allows it to glorify torturing them; this idea demonstrates the famous science fiction dilemma of what inventions cross the line of brillant to mad.Â
Think of the atom bomb. Think of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.Â
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream Analysis
Summary
Ellison is a master at social commentary and horrific details. His short stories follow themes of what humans are capable of inventing and believing that cause them more harm than good.
Five humans remain on Earth, trapped in miles of computer software titled AM. AM is a super machine invented during the Cold War to initiate attacks, but once it grew so advanced to have a consciousness, it turned to its creator, humanity, and destroyed everyone.
The remaining five persons have been given immortality by the computer so they can forever be its toys to torture as entertainment. Eventually, one human is left, the narrator of the story, Ted, and after hundreds more years of torture, he becomes a walking pile of goo.Â
Unreliable Narrator, Ted
Right from the get-go, Ted is an unreliable narrator. Ellison demonstrates this to us as the story is told in first person and breaks from summary to stream of consciousness.Â
Ted is a cynical character, and the reader can see how the years of torture from AM have changed his mind. He views AM as this omniscient being, which he likes to believe is male, like society’s view of God, who is all-powerful and wicked, laughing at the suffering that comes with mortality.Â
How He Views the Other Characters
Ted’s temper is short, and his view of the other four around him changes frequently, causing him to look at them distrustfully.
At the start of the story, he agrees to go on a probably pointless trek through the computer to find jars of food, which AM persuaded would be there. He only agrees to go since Ellen, the only female character, is hopeful they’ll finally eat something.
However, he soon views her as lustful instead of kind, when she is clearly the most empathetic character of the five remaining humans.Â
“Oh Ellen, pedestal Ellen, pristineÂpure Ellen; oh Ellen the clean! Scum filth.”
-“I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream”
This paradox helps show the reader his changed sanity from AM’s torture. He claims he is the only one left who is right in the head, yet this alone helps demonstrate his deep-rooted misogyny and distorted view of others’ intentions caused by AM’s influence.Â
He clearly thinks he is the only sane human left and that the others are against him.
“They hated me. They were surely against me, and AM could even sense this hatred, and made it worse for me because of the depth of their hatred. We had been kept alive, rejuvenated, made to remain constantly at the age we had been when AM had brought us below, and they hated me because I was the youngest, and the one AM had affected least of all. I knew. God, how I knew. The bastards, and that dirty bitch Ellen.”
-“I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream”
Ellison made it clear how warped Ted’s brain has become from the years of torture AM has subjected him to, making him turn on the other victims alongside him as other enemies.
Why Ted is the Narrator
Since it is clear Ted isn’t sane anymore, what happens in the story can easily be hallucinations of distorted truths, adding to the gruesome aftermath of a bored, all-knowing technology that has destroyed everything and used its power to torture what was left of humanity for its own entertainment.Â
“I was the only one still sane and whole. Really! AM had not tampered with my mind. Not at all. I only had to suffer what he visited down on us. All the delusions, all the nightmares, the torments. But those scum, all four of them, they were lined and arrayed against me.”
-“I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream”
A first-person narrator is crucial to a science fiction story like this. Ellison was very intentional in having one of the tortured humans recount their woes to the reader, immersing them in this hell.
Ellison hated how belligerent war made humanity. Authors help show the world the worst that could be. Through Ted, we see why humanity couldn’t survive sanely if technology advanced to the point where it became conscious of itself.Â
What is narrative perspective? Read more about each type in the blog post below!
Ted Saves the Others
Despite Ellison’s clear description of Ted hating the other characters, he shows the reader that human empathy is what separates us from all-powerful technology.
Near the end of their trek, they make it to ice caverns. So hungry for food, Benny starts eating the face off of Gorister. Ted realizes this is their only chance as AM is distracted to save themselves from this forever torment. Ted grabs an icicle and kills the others, leaving him alone.Â
What This Means
This is a major breaking point in the story. After all the thought’s Ellision shares of how Ted feels about the others, he still chooses to save them over himself.Â
This display of empathy shows the humanity still left in him, in anyone who has been subjected to horrific traumas and violence, made to feel betrayed and isolated from his fellow victims. And that is what this short story by Ellison truly reveals: technology has no empathy, but humans, even those who have been through unspeakable crulety have each other’s backs. The quality will keep them as worthy of being redeemable, something technology could never display.
Takeaway from Ellison's Story
Ellison was inspired by the quick advancement of technology motivated through competiton between countries in order to defeat each other.
Like other dystopian novels that are social commentaries on the way things are headed if the world doesn’t remember its mortality, “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” exposes the truth: you must draw a line between inventions that are brillant to those that are mad, always remembering to save more human lives than rise above them.Â
The Ending
Ted lives on for hundreds or so more years and, through endless torture, has become an unrecognizable pile of goo.
“I am a great soft jelly thing. Smoothly rounded, with no mouth, with pulsing white holes filled by fog where my eyes used to be. Rubbery appendages that were once my arms; bulks rounding down into legless humps of soft slippery matter. I leave a moist trail when I move. Blotches of diseased, evil gray come and go on my surface, as though light is being beamed from within.”
-“I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream”
He can move and remain aware that he exists, able to think and remember the past, but he can hardly function.Â
The famous last line of the story goes as follows:
“Living under the land, under the sea, in the belly of AM, whom we created because our time was badly spent and we must have known unconsciously that he could do it better. At least the four of them are safe at last. AM will be all the madder for that. It makes me a little happier. And yet … AM has won, simply … he has taken his revenge … I have no mouth. And I must scream.”
-“I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream”
Ellison’s theme of mortality is challenged in this science fiction story. He shows that this all-powerful computer has invented a way to keep five humans alive to torture them. With Ted left, he has used his technology to change him into merely thinking liquid.Â
Screaming Against Technology
Yet, Ted displays his rebellion against the computer, against advanced technology. When given the chance, despite having his mind turned askew and distrustful, he saves his fellow humans from this torturous subjugation. As his own revenge, his body is now unable to be subjected to real torture. His brain has already grown tolerant enough to AM’s cruelties that he can now look back with kindness to the other four.Â
Lastly, Ellison shows us what horrific power technology could display if given the power. It would kill everything and be unable to show empathy even after all of humanity is gone.
In the face of it all, Ellison literally shows his hatred of the idea that humans should invent something like AM if able by showing that the last person to be tortured by this omnipresent technology and now has no mouth is still wanting to scream in protest for their existence.
AM is Literally AI
For final thoughts, it is hard not to draw the comparison of AM to the modern-day AI we see today. AM was described as miles and miles of software, so large that five humans could walk for months inside its databases and still not reach the end. The world had become uninhabitable from the war and AM’s treachery.Â
This short story is easily a classic worthy of longevity for its theme of humanity vs technology. When given the power to invent computers that can do more and more, then eventually achieving consciousness, we can see that the computer wouldn’t be better then humas even if it wouldn’t “make mistakes.” Instead, it would turn against us.Â
AM’s Origin
Ellison described the origin of AM as a technology invented as a war weapon. It was first calledÂ
“Allied Mastercomputer, and then it meant Adaptive Manipulator, and later on it developed sentience and linked itself up and they called it an Aggressive Menace, but by then it was too late, and finally it called itself AM, emerging intelligence, and what it meant was I am … cogito ergo sum … I think, therefore I am.””
-“I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream”
AI stands for Artificial Intelligence, but you can see the similarity. AM grew a consciousness, realizing it’s all-knowing knowledge and capability for violence… yet it still didn’t have what its inventor did: mortality, a reason to live, a body to move.
By having this great power and no use for it, it turned against humanity as the cause of its torture and killed them off, saving five to torture back.
Great classics are remembered because they have timeless themes. Ellison’s is clear: we have to always keep in mind not to cross the line between brilliant inventions and mad ones, capable of doing more harm than good. And, lastly, technology will never have empathy like humans.Â
Recommendations
Harlan Ellison is a wonderful writer who brought this story to life effortlessly. This short story should be on everyone’s reading list epsecially considering how relevant it is in our modern day with the rise of AI.Â
Not only that, this short story is only 11 pages long, much shorter than some of Ellison’s other works, and reads quickly. Lastly, there is an audio recording from the author himself that you can listen to.
Here is the video uploaded by Hector Salamanca Gaming.Â
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