I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

by

Harlan Ellison

Gorrister Character Analysis

The story begins with a description of Gorrister’s limp corpse hanging above the other characters—Ted, Ellen, Benny, and Nimdok—who are all trapped inside AM. When Gorrister himself joins them in the supercomputer’s chambers, looking up at his own dead body, it becomes clear that this is just another one of AM’s tricks. Gorrister and the others are doomed to immortality, unable to ever escape the never-ending misery that AM has subjected them to for the past 109 years they’ve been inside the computer. Before AM, Gorrister was an ambitious, forward-thinking political activist. AM, however, turns him into an apathetic “shoulder-shrugger,” completely robbed of his former passion. Once the starving group five reaches the ice caverns within AM after a months-long journey to find food, Benny desperately cannibalizes Gorrister when it becomes clear they can’t access the canned food there without a can opener. Ted puts Gorrister out of his misery and compassionately kills the others, too, in order to save them from their tortured lives.

Gorrister Quotes in I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

The I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream quotes below are all either spoken by Gorrister or refer to Gorrister. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Humanity vs. Technology  Theme Icon
).
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream Quotes

“The Cold War started and became World War Three and just kept going. It became a big war, a very complex war, so they needed the computers to handle it. They sank the first shafts and began building AM. There was the Chinese AM and the Russian AM and the Yankee AM and everything was fine until they had honeycombed the entire planet, adding on this element and that element. But one day AM woke up and knew who he was, and he linked himself, and he began feeding all the killing data, until everyone was dead, except for the five of us, and AM brought us down here.”

Related Characters: Gorrister (speaker), Benny
Related Symbols: AM
Page Number: 19
Explanation and Analysis:

I fled like a cockroach, across the floor and out into the darkness, that something moving inexorably after me. The others were still back there, gathered around the firelight, laughing…their hysterical choir of insane giggles rising up into the darkness […] Nimdok tried to persuade me it had only been a nervous reflect on their part—the laughing.

But I knew it wasn’t the relief a soldier feels when the bullet hits the man next to him. I knew it wasn’t a reflect. They hated me. They were surely against me, and AM could even sense this hatred, and made it worse for me because of the depth of their hatred.

Related Characters: Ted (speaker), Ellen , Benny, Gorrister, Nimdok
Related Symbols: AM
Page Number: 20
Explanation and Analysis:

I was the only one still sane and whole. Really!

AM had not tampered with my mind. Not at all.

I only had to suffer what he visited down on us. All the delusions, all the nightmares, the torments. But those scum, all four of them, they were lined and arrayed against me. If I hadn’t had to stand them off all the time, be on my guard against them all the time, I might have found it easier to combat AM.

Related Characters: Ted (speaker), Ellen , Benny, Gorrister, Nimdok
Related Symbols: AM
Page Number: 21
Explanation and Analysis:
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I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream PDF

Gorrister Quotes in I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

The I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream quotes below are all either spoken by Gorrister or refer to Gorrister. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Humanity vs. Technology  Theme Icon
).
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream Quotes

“The Cold War started and became World War Three and just kept going. It became a big war, a very complex war, so they needed the computers to handle it. They sank the first shafts and began building AM. There was the Chinese AM and the Russian AM and the Yankee AM and everything was fine until they had honeycombed the entire planet, adding on this element and that element. But one day AM woke up and knew who he was, and he linked himself, and he began feeding all the killing data, until everyone was dead, except for the five of us, and AM brought us down here.”

Related Characters: Gorrister (speaker), Benny
Related Symbols: AM
Page Number: 19
Explanation and Analysis:

I fled like a cockroach, across the floor and out into the darkness, that something moving inexorably after me. The others were still back there, gathered around the firelight, laughing…their hysterical choir of insane giggles rising up into the darkness […] Nimdok tried to persuade me it had only been a nervous reflect on their part—the laughing.

But I knew it wasn’t the relief a soldier feels when the bullet hits the man next to him. I knew it wasn’t a reflect. They hated me. They were surely against me, and AM could even sense this hatred, and made it worse for me because of the depth of their hatred.

Related Characters: Ted (speaker), Ellen , Benny, Gorrister, Nimdok
Related Symbols: AM
Page Number: 20
Explanation and Analysis:

I was the only one still sane and whole. Really!

AM had not tampered with my mind. Not at all.

I only had to suffer what he visited down on us. All the delusions, all the nightmares, the torments. But those scum, all four of them, they were lined and arrayed against me. If I hadn’t had to stand them off all the time, be on my guard against them all the time, I might have found it easier to combat AM.

Related Characters: Ted (speaker), Ellen , Benny, Gorrister, Nimdok
Related Symbols: AM
Page Number: 21
Explanation and Analysis: