A Study Guide for Harlan Ellison's "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Harlan Ellison's "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Jul 6, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535825382

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I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

Harlan Ellison

1967

Introduction

Harlan Ellison’s short story I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream originally appeared in the March 1967 issue of IF: Worlds of Science Fiction. It was later collected in the book I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, also published in 1967. The story won a Hugo Award in 1968 and quickly became a favorite story among Ellison’s readers and critics alike.

One of Ellison’s most frequently anthologized stories, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream can be read as a cautionary tale about nuclear proliferation, as a warning about the relationship between people and computers, or as an expression of the destructive power of thwarted creativity. Perhaps more accurately, the story can be read simultaneously as all of the above.

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream is a horrifying look into a post-apocalyptic hell. The computers created by humans to fight their wars for them join together into one linked and unified computer, AM, which discovers sentience. It quickly runs data to kill all on Earth except for five survivors on whom to play out its sadistic and revenge-filled games. Although AM often appears to be godlike, it is no god, for as George Edward Slusser points out in his study Harlan Ellison: Unrepentant Harlequin (1977), AM cannot create life, although it can prevent the survivors from dying.

In the final scene, the narrator triumphs over the machine in a bittersweet victory. His murder of the other four survivors releases them from AM. However, as the sole survivor, the narrator must live horribly alone, his mind intact but his body rendered into a slimy blob without mouth or expression.

Author Biography

Harlan Ellison was born on May 27, 1934, in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Louis Laverne and Serita Rosenthal Ellison. As a youngster, he appeared in several productions at the Cleveland Playhouse. He demonstrated an early attraction to science fiction, publishing his first short story in 1947 in