Enduring Understandings

Characters:

     Characters within stories typically have a set of unique character traits. These traits play an important role in the story and contribute to how certain events play out. In Harlan Ellison’s The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore, the main character, Levendis, holds the ability to time travel. However, the way Levendis uses his powers presents a duality of good and evil. Ellison’s use of this duality of character traits presents the idea that all individuals have the capacity to do good or evil deeds.

In the beginning of the story, the reader is introduced to Levendis and his time traveling abilities. Levendis’s main goal is to push humanity to be a better, less mediocre version of itself, however he tries his best to not directly guide humanity towards more positive decisions and acts as he wants people to make these positive improvements themselves. Levendis merely acts as a positive influence to humanity. As he travels throughout time, Levendis partakes in good deeds ranging from small acts of kindness to changing how large, impactful events of history played out. Levendis’s acts of kindness demonstrate the benevolence of humanity and how it can contribute to a more caring society. Because Levendis is able to change history, he slowly creates a better version of humanity. Consequently, humanity is reformed to be kinder and more positive and caring to other individuals. Therefore, Levendis’s benevolence demonstrates how if humanity comes together to foster positivity and kindness that the world would become a better place.

     Although Levendis utilizes his powers for good, he does not have a strong grasp on his emotions. Levendis becomes bored from time to time and irritated with the horrible actions people take. Because of Levendis’s boredom and frustration, he occasionally partakes in nasty endeavors. Levendis’s terrible actions symbolizes how individuals still have the capacity to be malevolent even if they are an incredibly kind and caring person. The juxtaposition of Levendis’s positive actions and his negative ones represent the duality of good and evil that resides within every individual, even if it doesn’t initially seem so. 

     Character traits, such as Levendis’s ability to time travel and his capacity to be both good and evil allows readers to understand the agathokakological abilities of every person. Without these character traits, readers would not be able to understand the reasons behind Levendis’s actions, which is merely because Levendis had the capacity to partake in both positive and unsavory acts. This use of Levendis’s character traits lets Harlan Ellison illustrate the dichotomy of benevolence and malevolence.

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Setting:

     Setting plays an important role in all of literature. It paints a picture of where characters are and contributes to how events in stories occur and play out, as different settings have different values. If a story is set in a time period in the past, the story that takes place can turn out completely different than if it was set in a different time period, such as the present or future. Harlan Ellison uses setting within his stories, such as The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore and I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream, in order to explore how individuals’ values differ throughout time as well as to paint detailed pictures that contribute to how characters stories unfold.

     In Ellison’s The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore, the main character, Levendis, travels through time in order to foster a more positive version of humanity. As Levendis time travels, he explores multiple different settings and time periods. Because Levendis has the ability to time travel, he is able to be present in many different and unique settings. Consequently, Levendis also experiences the different values of these time periods. Levendis encounters racist individuals throughout his travels, and, as he is trying to push humanity to be better and kinder, he beats these individuals up in order to show them their actions are wrong and unjust. While Levendis’s actions don’t have massive impacts within the time periods he is currently in, once he travels to settings that are farther off in the future, he realizes that his actions have more positive impacts once they are given time to spread and grow. Because of Ellison’s use of multiple settings, he allows readers to see different values and how they functioned throughout time. He also creates a stark contrast between Levendis’s values and the values of the time periods he is in. These juxtapositions that take place throughout the story create tension between the characters, but ultimately allow Levendis to follow through with his main goal, which is being able to make humanity foster positive actions and rise above their mediocrity.

     While Ellison uses setting to explore different values of different places and periods, he also utilizes setting in a way that impacts how characters stories play out. Ellison creates detailed settings that allow readers to visualize and understand why characters would act the way they do. In I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream, Ellison presents a bleak and desolate setting throughout the entirety of the story. The story takes place in a huge complex of thousands upon thousands of computer servers that power the omnipotent AM. These servers stretch for miles and seemingly take up the whole world as they reside in a maze of countless caves and caverns. Because the setting Ellison puts these characters in is so bleak and repetitive, he illustrates just how hopeless everything seems. The repetitiveness of the setting demonstrates how impossible escape appears and reinforces the desolation of the dire situation. As the group of characters attempt to find a way out of their situation, they come to realize that they are desperate for any way out, and ultimately resort to the extremes, which eventually becomes killing one another in order to escape the malevolent clutches of AM. Ellison’s use of setting within I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream acts as a representation of hopelessness. These feelings of hopelessness, enacted by the setting, impact how the story plays out and allows the characters to realize how desperate they are for escape.

          Although Harlan Ellison utilizes setting in different methods, he is still able to use it in similar ways. Ellison’s use of setting allows it to influence the actions his characters take. Because setting has such a large effect on the characters within his stories, Harlan Ellison is able to illustrate how the environment a character is in will impact the events that occur within their story.

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Plot/Structure:

     In I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream, Harlan Ellison structures the text in a way that creates a captivating experience for readers while they are interpreting the story. Ellison includes details other than written text between sections of the story in order to immerse readers in the world and story Ellison writes about. 

     Throughout the story, Ellison includes details within the text itself in order to structure the story in a way that further immerses readers in world and allows them to understand the situation the characters are in on a deeper level. In certain parts of the story, Ellison puts pieces of encoded text in between paragraphs and different sections of regular text. These sections of encoded text are blocks of punchcode tapes that represent the computer, AM’s, talking. These tapes are encoded in International Telegraph Alphabet No 2, and when translated, the sequences of dots say “I think therefore I am” and “cogito ergo sum.” These phrases play an important role in the story, as the are significant to AM and his character development. They also help to exemplify the non-human qualities of AM as he is a computer, and therefore, does not communicate the same way humans do. In the story, AM evolved in a conscience being rather than just a sophisticated artificial intelligence used for war after he realized his hatred for humanity. Once AM became conscience, he references the phrases “I think therefore I am” and, when translated to latin, “cogito ergo sum” to justify his actions and prove that he is also an intelligent being capable of thinking, making judgements, and reasoning. Because Ellison utilizes these “talkfields” in order to reinforce the importance of the encoded phrases, he creates an immersive world for readers. Consequently, readers are able to better emphasize with the other characters of the story and recognize the situation they are in on a deeper level. Therefore, Ellison’s use of unique sections of encoded text create an immersive experience for readers that allows them to understand the dire situation the characters of the story are in.

     Overall, Harlan Ellison’s use of sections of encoded text that when translated provide important significance to specific characters within the story creates an immersive literary experience for readers. This technique farther immerses readers into the story because it allows them to understand the story, the characters, and it’s themes on a deeper level. These sections of encoded text also foster a more rounded and complete understanding of the story in an interesting way.

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