I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream Analysis
One of the most commonly written topics is about a future society in which human innovation has caused their downfall. A pioneer in this type of science fiction, Harlan Ellison envisioned a dystopia in which a handful of humans are made to live through a sentient supercomputer’s tortures. Despite how one-sided the conflict seems, the story ultimately centers around a power struggle that leaves both groups nearly in the same situation. In "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream," Ellison employs analogies to blur the distinctions between the creator and the creation, demonstrating that living is suffering since one often lacks control. Near the start of the story, the speaker, Ted, introduces the supercomputer named AM, who would physically and
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From the perspective of the prisoners, AM is more than just evil. It is both malicious and capable. For instance, the supercomputer would take one prisoner away from the rest and leave him “white, drained of blood, shaken, [and] shaking” (4). As a result of being under the absolute control of another being, the prisoners often lament at not being dead already. However, in some respects, AM is just carrying out the instructions left by its creators, the humans. It was made to handle the information from the story’s World War Three, making it a war machine that is fulfilling its mission to kill on the orders of human brutality. Even the characters of the story are not so kind, either. When Benny is setting himself to die by trying to escape, Ellen pleads that he stays for her own selfish reasons. Although AM has altered Ellen to crave sex, her greed for Benny causes her to only care about him for what he can offer to her, not about whether he lives or not. Because both the humans and AM are so similar to each other, they are both helpless to each other. When the computer is in control, it can subject the prisoners to its own evil wishes, and when Ted is in control, like when he kills his friends to stop their suffering, he ruins AM’s plans for revenge, its only solace for living besides Ted himself, while partially motivated by his own paranoia of the other
From the perspective of the prisoners, AM is more than just evil. It is both malicious and capable. For instance, the supercomputer would take one prisoner away from the rest and leave him “white, drained of blood, shaken, [and] shaking” (4). As a result of being under the absolute control of another being, the prisoners often lament at not being dead already. However, in some respects, AM is just carrying out the instructions left by its creators, the humans. It was made to handle the information from the story’s World War Three, making it a war machine that is fulfilling its mission to kill on the orders of human brutality. Even the characters of the story are not so kind, either. When Benny is setting himself to die by trying to escape, Ellen pleads that he stays for her own selfish reasons. Although AM has altered Ellen to crave sex, her greed for Benny causes her to only care about him for what he can offer to her, not about whether he lives or not. Because both the humans and AM are so similar to each other, they are both helpless to each other. When the computer is in control, it can subject the prisoners to its own evil wishes, and when Ted is in control, like when he kills his friends to stop their suffering, he ruins AM’s plans for revenge, its only solace for living besides Ted himself, while partially motivated by his own paranoia of the other