ipl-logo

Husband Harlequin Said The Ticktockman Analysis

918 Words4 Pages

“’Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman ” by Harlan Ellison was initially published in the Galaxy Science Fiction magazine in 1965. The text is set in a dystopian future where the lives of its citizens are governed according to a tight schedule administered by a robot-like character known as the Ticktockman. They maintain an unflinching reverence towards punctuality to ensure that their lives progress according to the schedule without any delays. In the midst of all this, is the Harlequin, whose tardiness has landed him in hot soup with the Ticktockman. The text narrates his exploits and their effects on society and his subsequent capture and punishment by the Ticktockman.
In a letter to Stephen King, Harlan Ellison identified his works as “foursquare for chaos” and his preference to be acknowledged as a ”troublemaker, malcontent” and “desperado”. The Harlequin’s anarchist and revolutionary actions in a conformist civilization can be viewed as a reflection of the author’s self-characterisation as a maverick. Therefore, the text could be interpreted as an exploration into individualism and its rejection of conformity to societal conventions.
The author begins his story with an excerpt from Henry David Thoreau 's essay “Civil disobedience”. In the excerpt, the majority of men …show more content…

The story begins with the narration of events in the future before the reverting to the past to describe the origins of the dystopia and how it came to be and finally returning to the future. This idea is explicitly stated in the phrase - “Now begin in the middle, and later learn the beginning”. The call to the readers to reject the conventional, regular, chronological flow of time that the people within the dystopia conform to can be seen as an attempt to introduce a little anarchy to promote individualism and

Show More
Related

  • Civil Disobedience And Letter From Birmingham Jail Summary

    244 Words  | 1 Pages

    Thoreau and M.L.K Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience”, published in 1849, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, published in 1963, have profound similarities while still having underlying differences. The one of the most distinct similarities in “Civil Disobedience” and “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” is the choice of action both authors decide to use, nonviolent measures, and who they are protesting against, which is government and its actions. On the same note, both essays express the dissatisfaction in the average white citizen’s acceptance for the status quo on slavery and then segregation. For example, both essays have a strikingly similar sentence; King states, “I had hoped that the white moderate

    Read More

  • Ethos In The Works Of Thoreau And The King

    486 Words  | 2 Pages

    Thoreau starts his essay by condemning his fellow countrymen’s actions, or rather, inaction. They and Thoreau share similar moral beliefs, but they refuse to take any action towards them. “Must the citizen ever for a moment, or

    Read More

  • Civil Disobedience, By Henry David Thoreau

    1199 Words  | 5 Pages

    This problem later inspired Thoreau to write his essay “Civil Disobedience”. Thoreau’s idea of civil disobedience was where there are less people running the government, the better it is. Because of the hassle of Thoreau getting arrested, his essay was an inspiration to many people. Some of them were Martin Luther King Junior, Leo Tolstoy, and Mahatma

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay On Antigone

    765 Words  | 4 Pages

    “Men generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them.” Thoreau claims that the men should wait and get more men to go against the law and stop paying taxes to raise awareness that the law is

    Read More

  • Harrison Bergeron Literary Analysis Essay

    923 Words  | 4 Pages

    One common afternoon in the year of 2081, when everyone was equal, Hazel and George Bergeron were in their lovely living room watching television. Suddenly, a news reporter with a severe speech impediment came on. After trying many times to say, “Good morning ladies and gentlemen,” he handed it off to a ballerina who read, “Harrison Bergeron, age 14, has just escaped from jail, where he was held on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government. He is a genius and an athlete, is under-handicapped, and should be regarded as extremely dangerous.” However, in this short story “Harrison Bergeron”, Kurt Vonnegut uses irony, shift and mood, and allusion to illustrated haw society would be if everyone was under the law of equality.

    Read More

  • 1984 And 1984 Comparative Essay

    508 Words  | 3 Pages

    Dystopian texts espouse a variety of didactic messages that depend significantly upon both the context and zeitgeist of the time in which they were created. Differences can be found when comparing the techniques and perspectives the authors have chosen to represent their contextual concerns to audiences. Together both Fritz Lang’s silent black and white film ‘Metropolis’ 1927 and George Orwell’s novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ (*referred to as 1984) 1948, confront and provoke audiences to consider the impact that (abusive power + unquestionable control= insert question statement) can have not only on the characters in these two texts, but also on the cultural and political lives of the reader and viewer. By subjugating & dehumanising the lower classes, dictators are

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Thoreau And Thomas Jefferson

    897 Words  | 4 Pages

    He objected the injustices of war and slavery, and practiced civil disobedience in his daily life. In the time of Thoreau writing Civil Disobedience, many people believed revolution against the government had not been necessary since the time of the American Revolution. However, Thoreau believes that resisting an abusive government is especially important at this point in time considering that, "a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and subjected to military law." According to Thoreau, it is the duty of American citizens to promptly revolutionize against slavery and the Mexican-American War, which have both been supported by the corrupted American

    Read More

  • Thoreau's Rhetorical Devices In 'Civil Disobedience'

    269 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the passage from "Civil Disobedience," the author, Thoreau, utilizes rhetorical devices to support his theme. Such devices include tone and diction. The theme expressed in the text is that the government is in need of change and acceptance, not a replacement. The author conveys a serious and professional tone throughout the passage. This helps add more to the seriousness of the subject and theme created which is the government needs change and acceptance, not a replacement.

    Read More

  • A Rhetorical Analysis Of Civil Disobedience By Thoreau

    422 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout history there have been many political changes that are either supported, or not, by citizens. In the given passage from, "Civil Disobedience," by Thoreau, a perspective of disagreeing with the government ways, is provided. Thoreau explains how a government should be in comparison to how it really is by utilizing his words to set the tone and mode, imagery to achieve his audience's understanding, and diction to make his writing scholarly. Although tone and mode are not directly stated, you can infer that Thoreau meant for his writing to be taken as serious and powerful. His implementation of words such as, "inexpedient," "execute," " integrity," and "command," makes one think about their lawful rights and reflect on what rights are supported or

    Read More

  • Examples Of Imagery In Civil Disobedience

    211 Words  | 1 Pages

    In “Civil Disobedience,” Thoreau claims that the people obey the government like machines and don’t use their brains and their conscience. He says that the government needs to improve and they need to respect everyone. Thoreau uses imagery, allusions and rhetorical questions to build his argument. Throughout the text are many examples of imagery. One of those examples would be in paragraph 17 when he describes the jail cell he stayed in.

    Read More

  • Oscar Wilde And Civil Disobedience And Social Progress

    995 Words  | 4 Pages

    Irish author Oscar Wilde claimed that disobedience is a valuable human trait, and that it promotes social progress; thus, without it, social progress would not be made. Civil disobedience is to social progress as hard work is to academic success. With hard work comes academic success, and with civil disobedience comes social progress. Though some see disobedience as a negative trait, it is what has promoted social progress in history by challenging social standards and requiring new social rules to be made. Civil disobedience challenges social standards by expanding views on the current guidelines.

    Read More

  • Henry David Thoreau's On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience

    162 Words  | 1 Pages

    Henry David Thoreau’s “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience” (first presented in 1848 and first published 1849) insists, — “That government is best which governs least”, or alternatively, — “That government is best which governs not at all.” Thoreau develops and supports his thesis statement by explaining what government is at best (an expedient) and usually is (inexpedient), and by giving a specific and current example to his readers. The author’s purpose was to educate the masses regarding civil disobedience, teaching them not only that it’s allowed, but that it’s a duty upon them in order to create an ideal government or even world. Thoreau’s intended audience is clearly the people who, as Thoreau himself said, “would not have consented to

    Read More

  • Comparing Emerson And Thoreau's 'Self-Reliance'

    1166 Words  | 5 Pages

    The early 1840s till the early 1950, a person 's desire to follows laws varied. Some people didn 't question any law and just followed them to avoid any trouble. But a few people objected. Two very influential writers, Ralph Emerson and Henry Thoreau, put together their opinions to form essays. Emerson’s work as published around 1841; Thoreau’s work was published around 1849.

    Read More

  • Self-Reliance And Thoreau's Prison Comparison

    1365 Words  | 6 Pages

    Thoreau explains that the state and societies prison “never intentionally confronts a man’s sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength” and furthermore that he “was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion” (1990). Therefore, Resistance to Civil Government is validating that prison is confinement and conformity, however, Thoreau will not be conforming to any such conformist state and neither should the reader. Thoreau finally reinforces that he is “not responsible for the successful working of the machinery of society” and that “if a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so man” (1990), Thoreau is explicating that society needs to be responsible for its self and become self-reliant, just as an individual should be, because it is the nature of the world and society and if it cannot live as such then it will not continue

    Read More

  • Transcendentalism In Civil Disobedience

    904 Words  | 4 Pages

    In Civil Disobedience, Thoreau questions, “must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think we should be men first, and subjects afterward”, indicating that man should take more focus on standing up for what is right instead of conforming to what the majority is thinking or what people are being told to think by the government (Thoreau). Thoreau explains that every man has a conscience for a reason, all men are able to generate an opinion on what is right and what is wrong and that men should in a sense “man up” and fight instead of backing down to become slaves to the legislative government. Thoreau gives an example of his non-conformity in Civil Disobedience when he writes about how he stood up against the government by withholding money to pay his taxes.

    Read More

More about Husband Harlequin Said The Ticktockman Analysis

Open Document