“Repent, Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman (Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Harlan Ellison
- First Published: 1965
- Type of Plot: Science fiction
- Time of Work: The near future
- Setting: An unspecified city on Earth
- Principal Characters: Everett C. Marm, Alice, The Master Timekeeper, Marshall Delahanty
- Genres: Short fiction, Science fiction
- Subjects: Crime or criminals, Time travel, Heroes or heroism, Clocks or watches, Time, Clowns
- Locales: Earth
The Story
The story opens with a passage from Henry David Thoreau's essay “Civil Disobedience” (1849), which concludes, “A very few . . . serve the state with their consciences also . . . and they are commonly treated as enemies by it.” The story then jumps to the future, when a man has come to the attention of the Ones Who Keep The Machine Functioning Smoothly, because he has become a personality. Known as the Harlequin, because of the clownish costume that he wears and the pranks that he plays, he is dismissed by the masses, but is loved by the people who need heroes...
[The entire page is 1368 words long]
