I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

by

Harlan Ellison

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream makes teaching easy.

Benny Character Analysis

Benny’s transformation is the most extreme of the five people—himself, Ted, Ellen, Gorrister, and Nimdok—trapped inside AM. Before AM, Benny was a brilliant theorist and college professor. Once inside AM, however, the supercomputer dissolved Benny’s brain and body to a diminished state that is more akin to a deformed monkey than a human being. According to Ted, Benny went insane many years before the story takes place and now mutters to himself and acts childishly and impulsively. AM plays with evolution through Benny, devolving the more refined aspects of Benny’s humanity down to primal instincts and even blinding Benny when he tries to escape AM as the group makes their way to the ice caverns within the supercomputer. While this might be an enjoyable game for AM, it has dire consequences: by removing Benny’s higher brain function, all that’s left is instinct. Thus, driven mad from hunger after a months-long journey without food, Benny chooses to cannibalize Gorrister once they reach the ice caverns and realize that AM hasn’t given them a can opener to access the canned food there. Witnessing this act causes Ted to realize that death is the only way they can ever escape AM, and he murders Benny and the others out of mercy, in order to free them from their tortured existence.

Benny Quotes in I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

The I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream quotes below are all either spoken by Benny or refer to Benny. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Humanity vs. Technology  Theme Icon
).
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream Quotes

And besides, we all saw through her concern. When AM had altered Benny, during the machine’s utterly irrational, hysterical phase, it was not merely Benny’s face the computer had made like a giant ape’s. He was big in the privates, she loved that! She serviced us, as a matter of course, but she loved it from him. Oh Ellen, pedestal Ellen, pristine-pure Ellen, oh Ellen the clean! Scum filth.

Related Characters: Ted (speaker), Ellen , Benny
Related Symbols: AM
Page Number: 17-18
Explanation and Analysis:

“The Cold War started and became World War Three and just kept going. It became a big war, a very complex war, so they needed the computers to handle it. They sank the first shafts and began building AM. There was the Chinese AM and the Russian AM and the Yankee AM and everything was fine until they had honeycombed the entire planet, adding on this element and that element. But one day AM woke up and knew who he was, and he linked himself, and he began feeding all the killing data, until everyone was dead, except for the five of us, and AM brought us down here.”

Related Characters: Gorrister (speaker), Benny
Related Symbols: AM
Page Number: 19
Explanation and Analysis:

I fled like a cockroach, across the floor and out into the darkness, that something moving inexorably after me. The others were still back there, gathered around the firelight, laughing…their hysterical choir of insane giggles rising up into the darkness […] Nimdok tried to persuade me it had only been a nervous reflect on their part—the laughing.

But I knew it wasn’t the relief a soldier feels when the bullet hits the man next to him. I knew it wasn’t a reflect. They hated me. They were surely against me, and AM could even sense this hatred, and made it worse for me because of the depth of their hatred.

Related Characters: Ted (speaker), Ellen , Benny, Gorrister, Nimdok
Related Symbols: AM
Page Number: 20
Explanation and Analysis:

I was the only one still sane and whole. Really!

AM had not tampered with my mind. Not at all.

I only had to suffer what he visited down on us. All the delusions, all the nightmares, the torments. But those scum, all four of them, they were lined and arrayed against me. If I hadn’t had to stand them off all the time, be on my guard against them all the time, I might have found it easier to combat AM.

Related Characters: Ted (speaker), Ellen , Benny, Gorrister, Nimdok
Related Symbols: AM
Page Number: 21
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream LitChart as a printable PDF.
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream PDF

Benny Quotes in I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

The I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream quotes below are all either spoken by Benny or refer to Benny. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Humanity vs. Technology  Theme Icon
).
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream Quotes

And besides, we all saw through her concern. When AM had altered Benny, during the machine’s utterly irrational, hysterical phase, it was not merely Benny’s face the computer had made like a giant ape’s. He was big in the privates, she loved that! She serviced us, as a matter of course, but she loved it from him. Oh Ellen, pedestal Ellen, pristine-pure Ellen, oh Ellen the clean! Scum filth.

Related Characters: Ted (speaker), Ellen , Benny
Related Symbols: AM
Page Number: 17-18
Explanation and Analysis:

“The Cold War started and became World War Three and just kept going. It became a big war, a very complex war, so they needed the computers to handle it. They sank the first shafts and began building AM. There was the Chinese AM and the Russian AM and the Yankee AM and everything was fine until they had honeycombed the entire planet, adding on this element and that element. But one day AM woke up and knew who he was, and he linked himself, and he began feeding all the killing data, until everyone was dead, except for the five of us, and AM brought us down here.”

Related Characters: Gorrister (speaker), Benny
Related Symbols: AM
Page Number: 19
Explanation and Analysis:

I fled like a cockroach, across the floor and out into the darkness, that something moving inexorably after me. The others were still back there, gathered around the firelight, laughing…their hysterical choir of insane giggles rising up into the darkness […] Nimdok tried to persuade me it had only been a nervous reflect on their part—the laughing.

But I knew it wasn’t the relief a soldier feels when the bullet hits the man next to him. I knew it wasn’t a reflect. They hated me. They were surely against me, and AM could even sense this hatred, and made it worse for me because of the depth of their hatred.

Related Characters: Ted (speaker), Ellen , Benny, Gorrister, Nimdok
Related Symbols: AM
Page Number: 20
Explanation and Analysis:

I was the only one still sane and whole. Really!

AM had not tampered with my mind. Not at all.

I only had to suffer what he visited down on us. All the delusions, all the nightmares, the torments. But those scum, all four of them, they were lined and arrayed against me. If I hadn’t had to stand them off all the time, be on my guard against them all the time, I might have found it easier to combat AM.

Related Characters: Ted (speaker), Ellen , Benny, Gorrister, Nimdok
Related Symbols: AM
Page Number: 21
Explanation and Analysis: