Gabe Snyder Blog 11 - I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (Outside Reading)

Harlan Ellison's I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, while short in page length, is terrifying in its content. In a bleak future where a sentient AI supercomputer created by the Cold War powers named AM kills all of humanity, five people are spared for AM to torture for all of eternity in horrifying, gruesome ways, with each punishment befitting to the character it is given to. For example, Benny, a once handsome scientist, is turned into a grotesque ape with a strong desire for heterosexual intercourse, in contrast to his once homosexual nature. The five humans are kept alive through AMs powers, which seem to be limitless in their possibilities. The ending, however, is one of the most memorable and nightmarish scenes, as Ted, the narrator, who manages to kill the other four humans and put them out of their misery, is punished by AM to be a "great soft jelly-thing," whose movement is severely limited and whose perception of time is altered to be infinitely slower for the rest of eternity.

One of the biggest implications within this story is that this is humanity's fault, as the reason AM is created is as a weapon to help win the third world war, emerging from the cold war. The fear of humanity's destruction in the 1960s with ideas of mutually assured destruction and constant fear of a nuclear war likely inspired the creation of AM, and likely made Ellison rather disgusted at humanity too, prompting AMs punishments (funnily enough, Ellison voiced the supercomputer in the 1995 award winning video game adaptation of the same name).

However, despite how bleak and terrifying this story is, there is something to be said about how much of a testament it serves as to humanity's constant drive for survival. The five survivors, while kept alive by AM, still do try to find solace in any way possible, trying to traverse an icy landscape in order to get some regular food. Additionally, Ted's murder of the rest of the crew is more of an act of mercy than an act of contempt, and Ted, though transformed into the amorphous creature he becomes, feels joy at knowing he released them from 109 years (and counting) of punishment.

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