Microreading: Revolution and Inefficiency in “’Repent Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman”

What constitutes a revolution against a society that runs like clock-work? Harlan Ellison in his short story “’Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” criticizes rigid society, while also addressing questions about revolution.  Ellison develops the discourse around revolution through a quote from Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience at the beginning of the story and connects the ending back to it.  Through character development, or lack thereof, and the form and structure of the story, Ellison masterfully builds upon the reader’s understanding to the point that the ending falls into place in the reader’s mind.

Examining the first sentence, “There are always those who ask, what is it all about?” (Ellison 368), we do not get a sense of where Ellison is going with the story.  It is not until we read through Thoreau’s quote that we receive the view that men serve society as machine and that the few people who resist are treated as enemies by the state and serve as heroes for a subset of the population.  Ellison builds upon these two points throughout the story starting first with the introduction of the Harlequin, the hero and enemy of the state.  Learning about Harlequin, who disrupts the schedule and makes people late with seemingly childish pranks, the Harlequin is established as the person asking the question “what is it all about?” (Ellison, 368) opposing the strictly scheduled world.  The two other named characters in the story are the Ticktockman and Pretty Alice, who symbolize the controlling state and the complacent member of the machine respectively.  The Ticktockman is only described as tall and silent, speaking very few words and always wearing a mask.  For Pretty Alice, the epithet of ‘pretty’ indicates that she is not distinguished by her personality only her appearance.  Personalities have been abolished from this society; however, the Harlequin has maintained his form and substance as a character.

Ellison develops the character of the Harlequin, first by providing a physical description of him.  The Harlequin is repetitively described having an “elfin grin” (Ellison, 370), which indicates the sense that he feels emotions in an emotionless society.  Pretty Alice also mentions that he speaks “’with a great deal of inflection’” (Ellison, 374), seemingly synonymous with speaking with emotion.  The Harlequin also shows guilt by constantly apologizing for being late and for causing disruptions, even though he is laughing all the while.  Additionally, the Harlequin brings out the human in other people.  For example, when he dumps the jelly beans on the slow-strip, the Timkin workers were laughing and eating the jelly beans with joy.  At the medical convention, the doctors present were laughing and bowing to the Harlequin at the entrapment of the state workers in nets.  Additionally, in the diversion at the shopping center, the Harlequin is careful to not put anyone’s personal safety at risk, only threatening society by making people late and disrupting the system.  Finally, the Ticktockman humanizes the Harlequin by asking who rather than what he is.  In a society of human machines stuck to a strict time schedule, the Harlequin’s identity is important.

The style of writing and the form of the story enhance the reader’s experience, and also shows rather than tells about the society.  First, in the jelly bean situation, Ellison uses language tools, like alliteration and cadence, to give the reader the sensation of jelly beans scattering and bouncing around and the joy felt by the people.  The jelly beans, which were not being manufactured anymore, also symbolize the joy that was left behind in the creation of the rigid society.  Second, the story starts in the middle, and then proceeds to the beginning of the rigid society.  Rather than telling about the creation of the time schedule, Ellison shows short notices written in different fonts that show the progression to a society in which being late was a punishable crime.  Third, Ellison also “illustrates the Ticktockman’s power and import” (Ellison, 375) through an aside mostly unrelated to the Harlequin and written completely in parentheses.  The aside shows the termination procedure that the Ticktockman uses to eliminate people when their time comes, and how it is not possible to run away from termination.  It does show what will happen to the Harlequin when the Ticktockman discovers his real identity and name.

Before I dive into the ending of the story, I believe it is important to examine the ironic contradiction of inefficiency in an efficient society that Ellison depicts.  Take the jelly bean situation for example, the shift schedule was delayed for only seven minutes; however, other workers were taken from their assignments to analyze the number of jelly beans, throwing their schedule off by a whole day.  As another example, the incident at the shopping center through off the shopping schedule by hours and also destroyed the balance of industry in the society as a whole.  Ellison is providing commentary of the domino effect of how one small event can cause a string of disruptions to occur.  However, his critique goes beyond the domino effect.  In a supposedly highly efficient society, the ability for adaptation to events out of the ordinary is non-existent.  In the case of such event, the society becomes quite inefficient highlighting a major drawback to organized, rigid society that the smallest push will knock it out of balance in a major way.

In the end, the Ticktockman learns the Harlequin’s true identity, Everett C. Marm, and terminates him, but only after he publicly communicates that he was in the wrong.  Interestingly, Everett C. Marm “wasn’t much to begin with, except a man who had no sense of time” (Ellison, 377). As a reader, this statement discredits the Harlequin’s acts of revolution, especially since Ellison further characterizes the Harlequin as simply a “non-conformist” (Ellison, 377).  However, Ellison connects the death of Everett back to the Thoreau quote presented at the beginning.  Ellison says, “in every revolution a few die who shouldn’t, but they have to, because that’s the way it happens, and if you make only a little change, then it seems to be worthwhile” (Ellison, 378). There is sacrifice made in every revolution, but do the Harlequin’s childish pranks and diversions actually make a difference in the society?  Based upon the second to last passage in the story, it would appear that his actions did not have an effect on the members of the population, since they were willing to disregard him as nuts.  With that said, the last passage provides a different perspective.  This passage shows the interaction between the Ticktockman and another person that is not identified other than by the pronoun, he.  The Ticktockman is shown to be three minutes late, which indicates that the Harlequin’s actions did have a larger impact, potentially depicting a small, but successful revolt against the rigid society.  To note, the unidentified person who informed the Ticktockman that he was late “grinned sheepishly” (Ellison, 378) connecting to the Harlequin’s “elfin grin” (Ellison, 370) repeatedly described throughout the story.  Ellison’s critique of a scheduled, machine-like society allows for the examination of how small, seemingly childish pranks can truly impact a society.  His story starts in the middle, backtracks to the creation of the time schedule before the pieces fall into place by the end as to give the reader a full appreciation for the small acts of rebellion that manifest themselves to knock the schedule out of balance.

Works Cited

Ellison, Harlan. “’Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” (1965). The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction. Ed. Arthur B. Evans, et al. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2019. 367-378.