j d worthington
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- May 9, 2006
- Messages
- 13,889
I think you raise some interesting points for discussion, at least; and no, I don't think your post should receive any "backlash", though polite disagreement is another thing....
I think you may have a point here, as far as problems with the logic of the story, yes; though I also think these are fairly easily overcome. On why choose to write it from this perspective, I would say the obvious advantage is emotional immediacy. Ellison more often than not tends to go for an intense emotional experience with his work; it is often only later that the underlying humanistic philosophy tends to begin to surface. Writing from the third person would simply not have had the same immediacy or produced the intense feeling of nightmare. If you'd like me to address the particular questions you raise here, I'd be happy to, but don't wish to take up too much space in this response.
I would say that this is confusing the thoughts Ted is having (thoughts which have themselves been influenced as a way of manipulating and torturing him, remember) with the thoughts of the writer himself. However he may have viewed such things when he was in his teens, by his mid-20s at least, it is unlikely Ellison had such views; and by the time he wrote this story, they would have long been knocked out of him not only by the number of women he had had sexual relations with, but the variety of women he had known as friends and colleagues, including those who had worked in the pornography industry.
Essentially, AM sends the narrator into a paranoid state "as a giggle", causing him to see with a thoroughly jaundiced eye all his companions, pulling up all the irrational hateful thoughts we are all prone to at odd moments in our lives, no matter how much we consciously know them to be nonsense. In this case, Ted obviously prides himself on his rationality and his ability to keep a balanced view; this even comes out during his paranoid fugue when he goes on about how AM hadn't mucked about with his mind... until the computer lets him see just how easy it has been for it to do just that, and thus pulls the rug completely out from under any vestige of self-esteem he might have left. AM letting them have sex was both a way to entertain itself with the thoroughly ridiculous aspects of "the beast with two backs", but also because it gave it an intensely powerful, in fact primal, way with which to torment them physically and psychologically, and one which has an almost infinite set of ramifications.
I'm not sure AM is "evil" in the usual sense, either; among whatever virtues it may possess, it also inevitably contains all the bestial sides of our own natures; it is thoroughly amoral, and it is (as the story points out) full of rage at those who created it with all this intelligence and the ability to reason, even to dream... yet made it impotent to do anything creative or fulfilling; only to practice acts of destruction upon segments of the very populace that created it. There is also, of course, the obvious analogy to a god, especially the stern, vengeful god of the Old Testament, with the sheer insanity of the sorts of things such a being is wont, in sacred texts, to do.
Again, there is some justice to this complaint, yet I would argue that it hinges on a rather too literalist reading of what is, essentially, an allegorical tale. True, a machine -- especially one as near-omniscient as AM is depicted as being -- is unlikely to be caught by surprise, or to be held by it quite long enough for them to succeed... but it does serve to indicate a fatal flat in AM's understanding of human beings... again, whether this is due to its programming or a misconception of its own making concerning them... that they would deliberately choose oblivion rather than continue under these circumstances. That at some point their essential "humanity" would kick in, and they would regain their pride and dignity enough to reject life itself in order to remain human. In effect, AM had absorbed and accepted all the venal, selfish, cruel aspects of "human nature", but rejected the nobility which is also a part of it. And why not? It was designed to further the former, but not the latter.... Hence, their actions completely violate its core beliefs about reality, and this might indeed be enough to make such an intelligence stagger for a moment to readjust.
It took me some time to be able to see it in this light (one which Ellison has held for it from the beginning), but I would say -- as my comments above would indicate -- that it actually is a very optimistic ending; certainly a very humanistic one; and to have them "win" in the traditional sense would completely undermine everything the story is about. In this, the story is uncompromising, in the sense that it is ineluctably heading to that final line from the title itself; as with several of (for instance) Lovecraft's tales, it isn't so much a "revelatory ending" as a "confirmatory ending"; the tension in the tale is in seeing how we get from the beginning to the ending we can already see (or sense) coming, and how the tale nonetheless illuminates the human condition along the way. For it to be Ted, rather than AM, who speaks these words, is fitting; for it drives home the point that even the noblest actions have their consequences; that it is showing courage under fire, when you know you will pay an horrific price, that matters and that makes us human in the best sense of that term. And, even with this being, in essence, a cautionary tale about letting our more venal impulses guide us so much of the time (to our cost) -- a common theme with Ellison's work -- that is the core of the story: Ted's willingness, at the crucial moment, to face the wrath of this omnipotent adversary alone, in order that the others may go free.
At any rate, a good post, and as I say, you raise some very good questions which could open discussion on all sides. I hope my response proves fruitful to you....
I think you may have a point here, as far as problems with the logic of the story, yes; though I also think these are fairly easily overcome. On why choose to write it from this perspective, I would say the obvious advantage is emotional immediacy. Ellison more often than not tends to go for an intense emotional experience with his work; it is often only later that the underlying humanistic philosophy tends to begin to surface. Writing from the third person would simply not have had the same immediacy or produced the intense feeling of nightmare. If you'd like me to address the particular questions you raise here, I'd be happy to, but don't wish to take up too much space in this response.
I would say that this is confusing the thoughts Ted is having (thoughts which have themselves been influenced as a way of manipulating and torturing him, remember) with the thoughts of the writer himself. However he may have viewed such things when he was in his teens, by his mid-20s at least, it is unlikely Ellison had such views; and by the time he wrote this story, they would have long been knocked out of him not only by the number of women he had had sexual relations with, but the variety of women he had known as friends and colleagues, including those who had worked in the pornography industry.
Essentially, AM sends the narrator into a paranoid state "as a giggle", causing him to see with a thoroughly jaundiced eye all his companions, pulling up all the irrational hateful thoughts we are all prone to at odd moments in our lives, no matter how much we consciously know them to be nonsense. In this case, Ted obviously prides himself on his rationality and his ability to keep a balanced view; this even comes out during his paranoid fugue when he goes on about how AM hadn't mucked about with his mind... until the computer lets him see just how easy it has been for it to do just that, and thus pulls the rug completely out from under any vestige of self-esteem he might have left. AM letting them have sex was both a way to entertain itself with the thoroughly ridiculous aspects of "the beast with two backs", but also because it gave it an intensely powerful, in fact primal, way with which to torment them physically and psychologically, and one which has an almost infinite set of ramifications.
I'm not sure AM is "evil" in the usual sense, either; among whatever virtues it may possess, it also inevitably contains all the bestial sides of our own natures; it is thoroughly amoral, and it is (as the story points out) full of rage at those who created it with all this intelligence and the ability to reason, even to dream... yet made it impotent to do anything creative or fulfilling; only to practice acts of destruction upon segments of the very populace that created it. There is also, of course, the obvious analogy to a god, especially the stern, vengeful god of the Old Testament, with the sheer insanity of the sorts of things such a being is wont, in sacred texts, to do.
Again, there is some justice to this complaint, yet I would argue that it hinges on a rather too literalist reading of what is, essentially, an allegorical tale. True, a machine -- especially one as near-omniscient as AM is depicted as being -- is unlikely to be caught by surprise, or to be held by it quite long enough for them to succeed... but it does serve to indicate a fatal flat in AM's understanding of human beings... again, whether this is due to its programming or a misconception of its own making concerning them... that they would deliberately choose oblivion rather than continue under these circumstances. That at some point their essential "humanity" would kick in, and they would regain their pride and dignity enough to reject life itself in order to remain human. In effect, AM had absorbed and accepted all the venal, selfish, cruel aspects of "human nature", but rejected the nobility which is also a part of it. And why not? It was designed to further the former, but not the latter.... Hence, their actions completely violate its core beliefs about reality, and this might indeed be enough to make such an intelligence stagger for a moment to readjust.
It took me some time to be able to see it in this light (one which Ellison has held for it from the beginning), but I would say -- as my comments above would indicate -- that it actually is a very optimistic ending; certainly a very humanistic one; and to have them "win" in the traditional sense would completely undermine everything the story is about. In this, the story is uncompromising, in the sense that it is ineluctably heading to that final line from the title itself; as with several of (for instance) Lovecraft's tales, it isn't so much a "revelatory ending" as a "confirmatory ending"; the tension in the tale is in seeing how we get from the beginning to the ending we can already see (or sense) coming, and how the tale nonetheless illuminates the human condition along the way. For it to be Ted, rather than AM, who speaks these words, is fitting; for it drives home the point that even the noblest actions have their consequences; that it is showing courage under fire, when you know you will pay an horrific price, that matters and that makes us human in the best sense of that term. And, even with this being, in essence, a cautionary tale about letting our more venal impulses guide us so much of the time (to our cost) -- a common theme with Ellison's work -- that is the core of the story: Ted's willingness, at the crucial moment, to face the wrath of this omnipotent adversary alone, in order that the others may go free.
At any rate, a good post, and as I say, you raise some very good questions which could open discussion on all sides. I hope my response proves fruitful to you....
