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Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman is the story written by Harlan Ellison. Harlan Ellison wrote the story in 1965 in one six-hour session in order to submit it the next day at a writers workshop. The published story was as almost exactly the same as the first draft from Ellison's typewriter. Harlan Ellison is a writer who has a straightforward mind and will say what he believes without caring what other people think.
Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman is about how people should think for themselves and not let the government or media program whats really going on into your head. In the story the author shows us futuristic society that is completely governed by time. The story takes place in 2389 when people become concerned about punctuality to such an extent when someone does not possess this desperately needed quality he or she can be sentenced to death. If someone is late, the delay is subtracted from his lifespan.
The Ticktockman enforces this rule. Punctuality is everything for people that live in year 2389. However, there are still some people who do not want to live all the time looking at the clock. Those people decide to strive against such regulations and they become heroes. Harlequin belongs to this group of people and tries not to follow and ignore these rules.
Harlequin does not want to be like everyone else. Harlequin does not agree with laws and he does not care what other people think or do about it. Instead, he does not let the Ticktockman scare him and is late for everything that he does whether anyone likes it or not. He is willing to give up his life for something he believes in. Ellison thinks that people should stand up for what they think is right, not what other people say is right. The story is interesting because it brings the idea of how people can serve to a society in different ways.
When you read the book you can see how a regular person is depending on the society and that the life of a person follows traditionally accepted model. A person simply becomes depending on a society and serves to the same society. Always there are some people who do not want to live under the pressure of majority. These people view that life should not be gray and that you should not live your own life in that specific way that is enforced by the moral norms created by the opinion of the majority. Harlan Ellison in the story uses different examples from the lives of people to show how the reform is important in the society in order to change existing concepts of life and regulations imposed on people because of will of the majority. It is possible to think on how it violates the rights of an individual; however, I believe that in real life everything is possible and that lots of people simply do not notice how they are under influence of society.
The society in which Harlequin lived was very strict. Everyone in the society needs to know what time is right now and should be everywhere sharp on time does not matter what could happen. People who live such a life simply become robots, who just do what they are supposed to do and when. Harlequin rebelled against such life.
Harlan Ellison wrote about Harlequin, He could hear the metronomic, left-right-left of the 2: 47 shift; entering the Timing roller-bearing plant in their sneakers he heard the right-left-right of the 5: 00 AM formation, going home. This quote from the book shows the punctuality of the people, as well as their total dependence on time and on the society's concepts. People were so obsessed with time that they shortened their words. People were saying e-grav instead of anti-gravity. In 2389, there was so much control over the people that they no longer did what they wanted to, or what they felt was right. Lives of people were boring.
When everything is planned ahead and you know exactly what will happen in the future, does then life has any sense? Probably, not. In Ellison's story it is also possible to see how unimportant the live of individual is. When Marshall Delahauty had received his turn-off message, he tried to escape, His heart stopped, and the blood dried up on its way to his brain, and he was dead thats all. This shows the reader the extreme control of the Ticktockman. He had the power to end the lives of people as he pleased.
The story was well-written, since Ellison used great images and described everything so well that the reader felt like he or she was in the story. The author had to use imagery because it would not be possible to give the reader a complete idea of what was happening. Jelly beans that were falling from the sky can be a perfect example of successful use of imagery. Not only people were living according to systematic schedules, but also they had to do wear a set style of dress and different colors for every day of the week. Different colors allowed the citizens to shop one day per week, which in turn created more order in the society. For had someone decided to shop in a different day than assigned, time would be lost and the master schedule would become delayed, which would impose serious problems on the society.
Every citizen was aware of this order, but not many understood how foolish it is. By providing such an example, Ellison shows how brainwashed people had become. People in the society described by Ellison viewed everything different as being horrible. Moreover, without imagery it would not be possible to show the contrast between something different and monotonous life of an individual where lateness is absolutely not acceptable. As a contrast, Harlequin is portrayed as a hero through the eyes of the author. Harlan Ellison used characterization in order to show the lives of three different kinds of people that lived in this severe society.
People were characterized according to their bodies, their conscience and their intellect. It greatly helps the reader to understand the importance of revolution in such a society, where everything exists according to a certain rule, which is strict and should be observed by all members of the society regardless of what each member thinks about the issue. The first type of people who served with their bodies was the populace. Alice represented this type because she lived according to the rules of others and did not think for herself. Alice wanted to belong and wanted to conform. The second type who served with their consciences.
Harlequin belonged to this type. Harlequin did what he felt was moral and right and did no think about how others might react. Harlequin did not observe what Ticktockman dictated and always had his own opinion, unlike others. The third kind of people in the story served with their intellect. Ticktockman made decisions, which were aimed at making everyone to be on time and forcing everyone to be concentrated on performing certain task. Ticktockman's decisions were destructive, but they had to be observed, which shows what tyrant Ticktockman was.
Ellison makes the point in the book that in life people view those who think differently as evil. The Harlequin was a dangerous criminal because he was not like the rest of society. By using these rhetorical devices, Ellison gets his point across to the reader that anyone can make a difference in society so long as the person does not conform. Ellison has long been revered (and reviled) as a controversial writer, unafraid to experiment with his writings or to take risks with his career. No one has exposed their professional and personal life more bluntly and brilliantly.
Bibliography: Ellison, H. Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman. Underwood Books, 1997 Harlan Ellison Works the Edge, web web Ellison, H. The Essential Ellison: A 35 Year Retrospective by, et al. Morpheus Intl, 1991
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Research essay sample on Repent Harlequin Said The Ticktockman
