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A review by ava_13
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison
3.0
Horrifying. ‘I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream’ is my nightmares in story form, especially in the end. I listened to the audiobook, especially since the story itself is only 11 pages, and Harlan Ellison does a fantastic job of narrating, especially when it comes to Ted and how Ted has spiraled into insanity and became an unreliable narrator. Another bit of voice acting that I like was when Ellison was giving AMs hate monologue he gave him a typically robot ‘be boop bop’ voice. By doing this it really creates the contrast of an AI robot experiencing human emotions
I like that the story itself is shorter, I feel like if it was any longer it would veer into a torture porn category. Which this story could have easily slipped to. But I think it does a good job of staying on track. I love, love, love that Ted’s humanity is shown at the end when he chooses to save Ellen instead of himself.
Trigger warning: discussion of rape.
Obviously there is the glaring issue of Ellen. In the short story Ellen is the only woman character and of course she is forced into having sex with the male characters. It’s worded a bit differently but essentially forced. I’ve seen a few other reviews discuss how throughout the short stories all the women are some variation of a whore, but I haven’t read the other stories. What is done to Ellen here is a special horror because she’s trapped with four other men. I can see where a lot of people get frustrated, especially about the line where Ted talks about how ‘lucky’ she is to be with four men.I didn’t really see this as the author projecting his misogyny onto Ted but more as a way to illustrate how much Ted has spiraled into insanity from AM. Obviously this is idea is substantially lessened when the same misogyny spans throughout his other books. But like I said I haven’t read them.
This is the longest review I’ve ever written holy shit.
I like that the story itself is shorter, I feel like if it was any longer it would veer into a torture porn category. Which this story could have easily slipped to. But I think it does a good job of staying on track. I love, love, love that Ted’s humanity is shown at the end when he chooses to save Ellen instead of himself.
Trigger warning: discussion of rape.
Obviously there is the glaring issue of Ellen. In the short story Ellen is the only woman character and of course she is forced into having sex with the male characters. It’s worded a bit differently but essentially forced. I’ve seen a few other reviews discuss how throughout the short stories all the women are some variation of a whore, but I haven’t read the other stories. What is done to Ellen here is a special horror because she’s trapped with four other men. I can see where a lot of people get frustrated, especially about the line where Ted talks about how ‘lucky’ she is to be with four men.I didn’t really see this as the author projecting his misogyny onto Ted but more as a way to illustrate how much Ted has spiraled into insanity from AM. Obviously this is idea is substantially lessened when the same misogyny spans throughout his other books. But like I said I haven’t read them.
This is the longest review I’ve ever written holy shit.