32 pages • 1 hour read
Harlan EllisonI Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1967A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Allusion
The narrative uses allusion, or references, to imply a global, mythological scale to the suffering of the survivors and the power of AM. The biblical references are manifold, from referring to the abhorrent food provided by AM as “manna,” to Ted’s Christlike self-sacrifice, to the name “AM” itself that parallels God’s statement to Moses: “I am that I am.” Ted also refers to the giant bird as a “Hurakan,” the Carib origin of the English term “hurricane,” and also as “Huergelmir,” the name of a powerful, ancient Norse spring. In addition to the biblical references, the text also nods to the Christian allegory Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. The line “And we passed through the slough of despond” (9) refers to an allegorical location in Bunyan’s tale in which all the sins of mankind make up a swamp where pilgrims can drown.
Additionally, Ellison nods to H. G. Wells in the quote: “And we passed through the country of the blind” (9). This refers to Wells’s novel The Country of the Blind and locates the story within the science fiction and horror canon.
Though these moments are brief, they situate the narrative not only as a piece of dystopian apocalyptic literature but as a text that explores the bleaker, more helpless aspects of an omnipotent God.
Imagery
“I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” utilizes original and vivid imagery. From Ted’s description of witnessing Benny’s punishment—“The pain shivered through my flesh like tinfoil on a tooth” (3)—to Ted’s experience of the unseen horror—“There was the smell of charred wood. There was the smell of dusty velvet. […] There was the smell of sulphur, of rancid butter, of oil slick, of grease, of chalk dust, of human scalps” (5)—these images evoke the terror and torment of AM’s prison by creating a visceral reaction in the reader.
The imagery reaches new, violent heights when Ted experiences AM invading his mind to tell him how much he hates humans: “AM said it with the sliding cold horror of a razor blade slicing my eyeball. […] AM said it with the taste of maggoty pork” (6). These images cement the impression that Ted has been incurably damaged by AM’s interference in his brain and emphasize AM’s power.
One of the most horrifying images is Ted’s description of his body after AM punishes him at the end of the story: “Smoothly rounded, with no mouth, with pulsing white holes filled by fog where my eyes used to be. […] Blotches of diseased, evil gray come and go on my surface, as though light is being beamed from within” (11). The imagery creates a strong sense of pathos in the reader, encouraging discomfort that parallels the suffering of the human survivors navigating their prison.
Irony
Irony comprises the crux of AM’s punishments of the survivors, as well as his own experience of torment. AM takes the survivors’ best characteristics and warps them into tragic flaws that bring them only suffering: AM destroys Benny’s intelligence and good looks, turning him into a senseless ape-man capable of cannibalism. He turns Gorrister’s ideals of nonviolence, conscientious objection, and protest into a type of emotional paralysis, making him unable to take any action at all. Ted’s keen mind and analytical ability are amplified into extreme paranoia, dread, worry, and horror. Ellen’s ideals of love and kindness are twisted into empty sexual desire, culminating in acts performed without love at all.
The most keenly felt irony is the existence of the canned goods at the end of their trek, technically fulfilling the promise AM made. However, AM renders the canned food useless by refusing to provide a method of opening them. The irony of AM’s punishments heightens the sense of despair in the survivors and strengthens the biblical comparisons to the suffering of sinners in hell.
Ultimately, the complete inversion of each character’s personality and values reflects AM’s fate. It was meant to help humankind by ending the war, and instead was twisted to destroy humankind, torment, and be tormented for eternity.
Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing is used as a plot device throughout the story. In the beginning, Gorrister hangs dead from the ceiling, mirroring his fate at the end when he is attacked by Benny. At the beginning of their journey, the men carry Ellen, foreshadowing her leg injury later on. Benny’s punishment turns his eyes into “soft, moist pools of puslike jelly” (2), foreshadowing the state of Ted’s eyes after he receives his punishment for disobedience. Gorrister recounts that the humans sunk “shafts” into the Earth for AM’s body, which mirrors “the pit that dropped into the center of [Ted’s] brain and the faint, mothsoft murmurings of the things far down there that gibbered without meaning, without pause” (6).
The foreshadowing creates a sense of inevitability in the story, which heightens the bleak tone and feelings of powerlessness, both in the characters and the reader. Additionally, it plays into Ted’s admission at the end of the narrative that AM has destroyed his conception of time: “Some hundreds of years may have passed. I don't know. AM has been having fun for some time, accelerating and retarding my time sense” (11). This opens up the possibility that Ted’s recounting of events may be scrambled, explaining the circular patterns of the narrative.
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