I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream | Use of Unreliable Narrator in Literature

In the following essay, the author examines the convention of the unreliable narrator in literature, focusing on the way Ellison both uses and subverts that convention in his story.

Harlan Ellison first published ‘‘I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream’’ in the March 1967 issue of IF: Worlds of Science Fiction, before using it as the title story in his 1967 collection I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream. A horrifying and ghastly story of a post-apocalyptic hell controlled by a monster computer, ‘‘I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream’’ attracted the attention of Ellison fans and critics alike, winning a Hugo award in 1968.

In the years since its original publication, the story has continued to attract critical attention. Because it is...

[The entire page is 1879 words long]

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