Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman | Themes

Conformity and Individualism
In ‘‘‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman,’’ Ellison clearly sets his hero, the Harlequin, in opposition to both the totalitarian regime of the Ticktockman and the master schedule and to the masses of people who choose to conform to the strictures of the society. His opening quotation from Thoreau makes this clear. Thoreau argues that most people serve the state without thinking and without moral reflection. Consequently, for Thoreau, these people have no more worth than ‘‘horses and dogs.’’ Real heroes, then, are those...

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