I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream - Harlan Ellison

        I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream 

[alert-success] I Have No Mouth, and i Must Scream - Harlan Ellison

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         Harlan Ellison's apocalyptic novel I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream is a description of five individuals who have been living inside the Allied Master computer: Ted, Ellen, Benny, Nimdok, and Gorrister. The context of this short story is the American Civil War and the Russian Civil War. 

        The story begins with the four protagonists, Ted, Ellen, Benny, and Nimdok, witnessing Gorrister's dangling body from the supercomputer. Soon after, Gorrister also joins them. Then the narrator, Ted, informs readers that it was our one hundred and ninth year in the computer.

        AM is a supercomputer that humans have developed as a weapon with the ability to control others. The US, Russia, and China were involved in a civil war at the time, and these three nations used distinct atomic weapons. These weapons gave their users the ability to think but not the ability to feel as humans do; therefore, they were unable to interact with people as humans do. 

        This infuriates the AM, who has grown resentful of humans as a result. After World War Three broke out, the three AMs united to form the present AM. This AM took revenge on the entire world by killing everyone, but it did not kill these five because it wanted an eternally bitter retribution against them. They have been surviving longer than the average human lifespan. And this Am has treated them terribly.

We had allowed [AM] to think, but to do nothing with. In rage, in frenzy, he had killed us, almost all of us, and still he was trapped.

        Although the term "AM" originally referred to the Allied Mastercomputer, some critics have added additional references. The first principle of the French philosopher René Descartes states, "I think, therefore I am," indicating that AM refers to "I am," as the attribute of thinking transforms a nonliving object into a living one. I am who I am, another passage from Exodus' third book, also refers to God as the AM.

        Until one day, when Benny has a food hallucination and everyone decides to go in search of the food, these people have received harsh treatment from this AM. AM presents them with numerous challenges along the way, but they all work together to get over them by supporting one another. The desire of Ted is that one must die in order to defeat it, because this AM cannot let them perish.

        After a month of travel, they arrived at the location for canned food, but no can opener was provided. They become enraged by this, and they have begun to murder one another one by one. And ultimately, Ted kills Ellen by hoping,

I could not read meaning into her expression, the pain had been too great, had contorted her face; but it might have been thank you. It’s possible please.

        Ted is the only one left at this point, so the AM vents all of its rage on him by turning him into a blob that can only think and cannot move or perform any other actions. Ted then claims that I lack a mouth. I have to shout now.