In the short story “Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman” (1965), Harlan Ellison submerges the reader in a dictatorial society in which conformity and adherence to social norms are not only expected, but demanded. He establishes a tension between the two main characters of the story: the Ticktockman, the master Timekeeper and authoritarian leader who is a physical embodiment of the society’s need for temporal order, and Harlequin, a lower-level citizen whose seeming lack of ability and desire to be on time poses a dangerous threat to the foundation of temporal standards upon which their society is built. While one may read Harlequin’s ultimate capture by the Ticktockman (and subsequent reconditioning and release) as a testament to the notion that individual rebellion is futile, the way in which Harlequin’s interaction with the Ticktockman appears to impact the latter suggests that personal acts of rebellion are both important and necessary. They expose the flawed nature of the very institutions against which they take place. Ellison’s employment of syntactic and typographic structures that go against current conventions serves as a visual manifestation of Harlequin’s incessant refusal to conform to societal standards, thus furthering a larger argument underscoring the text that individual actions and resistance, no matter how small, matter. To explore this, I will examine the way in which Harlequin’s presence disrupts the Ticktockman’s normal speech patterns and the contrast between sentence length and narrative voice in reference to time and Harlequin. I will then look at the ambiguity of the interaction between Harlequin and the Ticktockman, accompanied by a deterioration in the latter’s speech patterns, as a signal to the reader that Harlequin’s individual rebellion has ultimately proved impactful.

Before the reader meets Harlequin, Ellison first highlights the way in which the individual rebellion represented by the former introduces chaos into the Ticktockman’s otherwise orderly existence. This is exemplified by the Ticktockman’s temporally disorganized dialogue. Early on in the short story, the Ticktockman questions Harlequin’s rebellious existence, ruminating that he knows “what he is” but he “[has] to know who this what is” (Ellison, p. 370). While the Ticktockman’s words reveal a concern at this abnormality at large in their society, he is still regimented in his speech. There is a natural progression to the logic of his questioning, and key words are italicized in a manner which allows the reader to easily identify the core of his concerns. However, the narrator observes that “he was not purring smoothly” and that “timewise, it was jangle” (Ellison, p. 370). The manner in which Ellison associates the simple contemplation of Harlequin’s existence and the Ticktockman’s temporal “jangle” is significant. One may presume that the Master Timekeeper is, by nature of his authoritative position, precise and calculated in his words and his actions. However, the Ticktockman’s discombobulation in this moment reveals that Harlequin’s antagonistic and rebellious presence has already begun to affect the very individual responsible for ensuring that the members of their society adhere to the temporal norms demanded of them. 

This main ideological conflict between societal authority and civilian resistance is underlined by the juxtaposition between the short, clipped sentences used to refer to the Ticktockman and the society’s rigid conception of time and the long and overwhelming sentences depicting the flow of Harlequin’s thoughts. For example, Ellison employs one-word sentences to describe the middle-class opinion of Harlequin as “vulgar ostentation. Anarchistic. Shameful” (Ellison, p. 369). Here, these adjectives not only demonstrate the way in which Harlequin’s inexactitude has earned him a “shameful” reputation amongst certain social circles, but also perform the very exactness that the “anarchistic” Harlequin lacks. One may also posit that these short sentences replicate the ticking movement of the clock in the short and clipped addition of each word to the progression of the excerpt, therefore embodying the very mechanism (time) on which the society runs. 

In stark contrast to the regimented speech exhibited by the Ticktockman, Harlequin’s scattered and rambling narrative voice breaks up the timely rhythm and order which the Master Timekeeper attempts to uphold. Ellison introduces the reader to Harlequin with a monologue on jelly beans and the “millions and billions of purples and yellows and greens and licorice and grape and raspberry and mint and round and smooth and crunchy outside and soft-nealy inside and sugary and bouncing jouncing tumbling” (and so on and so forth) snacks that they are (Ellison, p. 371). This meditation on the sugary candy spans almost two pages. Reading through the above excerpt is exhausting to the eye; Harlequin’s narrative voice bursts with chaotic energy that Ellison scarcely breaks with any form of punctuation. Harlequin’s run-on stream of consciousness clashes with the timely and clipped speech used to describe the society in a manner which highlights the central ideological differences between Harlequin and the Ticktockman. The Ticktockman represents temporal precision, whereas Harlequin is his “bouncing jouncing tumbling” opposite. Here, not only does Harlequin defy societal order, but he also disregards syntactic conventions in a manner which emphasizes his rebellious nature. 

Ellison ends “Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman” with an interaction between Harlequin and the Ticktockman that makes the reader question: to what extent is individual rebellion futile? When the Ticktockman and his forces finally capture Harlequin, the two characters have a bizarre exchange in which the Ticktockman changes his mind about turning Harlequin off mid-conversation. Harlequin is sent to “Coventry,” from which he emerges “appearing elfin and dimpled and bright-eyed, and not at all brainwashed, and he said he had been wrong, that it was a good, a very good thing indeed, to belong” (Ellison, p. 378). In this utilization of polysyndeton, Ellison syntactically signals to the reader that Harlequin has not been “brainwashed” by his experience through the perseverance of the chaotic run-on nature of the latter’s narrative voice.

The reader may, however, notice a small yet significant change in the Ticktockman. In the final lines of the short story, the Ticktockman himself is three minutes late. When informed by his assistant of his tardiness, the Ticktockman dismisses this accusation, murmuring “that’s ridiculous!” and retreating to his office, “going mrmee, mrmee, mrmee, mrmee” (Ellison, p. 378). Here, the reader may note a crack in the Ticktockman’s meticulous exterior. Not only is the Master Timekeeper late, but he leaves the interaction citing what appears to be a nonsensical refrain of “mrmee.” One may posit that the malfunction that the Ticktockman exhibits when speaking of Harlequin is exacerbated by a face-to-face interaction with the temporal rebel–what was once a timeless “jangle”of speech has devolved into gibberish. Before this meeting with Harlequin, despite the observed disruption in the Ticktockman’s normally regimented speech, there was still an emphasis on what would appear to be the important, keywords of the sentence. Here, Ellison’s typographic emphasis on a made-up word, a tactic reminiscent of the way in which he also characterizes Harlequin’s speech, suggests that Harlequin’s interaction with the Ticktockman has more gravely affected the latter. Another reader may posit that the creaking repetition of “mrmee, mrmee” serves as an important marker to denote the deterioration of the Ticktockman; when faced with opposition in the form of Harlequin, he breaks down. 

Ultimately, Ellison imbues the Ticktockman’s actions with an unsolvable ambiguity which serves as the most powerful testament to the success of Harlequin’s individual rebellion. Not only does the Ticktockman display behavior that conflicts with his commitment to temporal and societal order, but he also mimics Harlequin’s narrative voice in a way that challenges convention, thus highlighting the impact of Harlequin’s rebellion. Through Ellison’s play with syntactic and typographic structure, he emphasizes the power of Harlequin’s individual resistance and leaves the reader with an important message: that no matter how small the impact, we can be agents of change in our own lives, too. 

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.