Revenge, Punishment, and Suffering Theme Analysis

Ellison’s short story “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” follows five characters as they navigate a post-apocalyptic landscape inside the mechanical bowels of AM, a sadistic supercomputer. AM leads a harrowing existence, too clever and powerful for its own good, with no real outlet for its twisted creativity. And so when AM kills off humanity in its rage, it saves five random individuals to use as its own “playthings,” to torture incessantly and eternally in order to get revenge on humanity for constructing AM in the first place. Through AM’s agonizing existence, and the unending suffering it inflicts on its scapegoats, the story suggests that exacting revenge and punishing others doesn’t actually alleviate one’s own suffering—in fact, it may even make it worse.

AM is miserable for having been created, so it lashes out, killing nearly all of humanity. Not satisfied by the slaughter of billions, AM spares a group of five people to torture for the rest of time. AM does more than just punish the group; it thoroughly enjoys crafting personal, intricate ways of torturing them. Inside its web, AM creates treacherous terrain and weather for the group to endure. Ted describes his and his companion’s apathy toward AM’s constantly-changing punishments: “hot, cold, hail, lava, boils, or locusts—it never mattered: the machine masturbated and we had to take it or die.” But the problem is, AM makes sure they never die: they have been trapped inside the supercomputer for 109 years, with no end in sight. AM takes pleasure in each trial and torture—starving them and tearing apart their bodies and minds only to reassemble them for its pleasure.

Though AM has been torturing the group for over 100 years, its hatred for humanity is never quenched, signaling that AM’s abuse of the group amplifies rather than alleviates its hatred for them. Beyond the physical suffering, AM psychologically torments the group through its manipulation of how they interacts with one another. Gorrister slaps Ellen, prompting her to cry, which Ted claims is “her big defense.” Rather than comfort her, Gorrister kicks her in the side and Ted explains, “We had gotten used to it seventy-five years before.” AM was created to manage human wars, and ideally to put an end to them entirely. It accomplished that task the only way it knew how: by eliminating all of humanity, save for their group of five. Since they were saved for AM’s revenge, there is the chance that inside all of AM’s infinite programming about innumerable religions and mythologies, it also contains knowledge of human redemption. Perhaps the five do continue to give AM reason to hate humanity through their treatment of each other, thereby ensuring their continued suffering. At one point in the story, AM infiltrates Ted’s mind, telling Ted how deeply it hates him and all of humanity: “AM said it with the sliding cold horror of a razor blade slicing my eyeball. […] AM said it with the taste of maggoty pork.” It is through this particular anguish that Ted comes to finally understand why AM is taking out its suffering on the group. AM blames them for what humanity inflicted upon it: existence. Humans didn’t deliberately set out to make a sentient computer, but even now that AM is “alive,” there is no real meaning behind its continued existence or the unbridled power it wields.

In order to spare the other four of their continued agony, Ted murders his companions, condemning himself to a solitary half-existence inside AM. Because AM’s existence is endless, the group’s torment is also endless. For Ted, murder therefore becomes the more compassionate option than allowing the rest of his companions to endure AM’s revenge. By killing them, Ted saves the others from the endless agony of immortality, but AM ensures that Ted is unable to kill himself—Ted thereby dooms himself to suffer through AM’s sadistic revenge alone as  “a great soft jelly thing,” a mere shadow left of the human race. At the beginning of the story, Ted thinks AM hates him the most out of the group and thus makes him suffer more than any of them. After killing off his companions, though, Ted realizes “I had thought AM hated me before. I was wrong. It was not even a shadow of the hate he now slavered from every printed circuit. He made certain I would suffer eternally and could not do myself in.” AM’s increased hatred for Ted by the end of the story indicates that even though AM’s initial pain—the pain of existence—is humanity’s fault, by enacting its revenge on the group, AM actually worsens its own suffering.