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Ted
As the only female character trapped inside AM along with Ted, Benny, Gorrister, and Nimdok, Ellen is at once revered and objectified by the four men who share her fate. Although they are protective of her, carrying her in their arms and shielding her from danger as the group of five make the journey to the ice caverns within AM, she is also expected to fulfill the sexual whims of all four men and is subjected to their emotional and physical abuse. Ellen is highly empathetic and often shows maternal care and concern for her companions. She is also notably more optimistic than the others, constantly visualizing the delicious fruit that could await them in the caverns. However, since the story is told through Ted’s cynical and deeply misogynistic perspective, he belittles Ellen’s positive characteristics and instead perceives her merely as a sex object, thinking of her as “scum filth” and a “slut” who lies about having been a virgin before AM. Upon finally reaching the ice caverns, the starving group cannot access the canned food that AM has presented them with, so Benny cannibalizes Gorrister. This gives Ted the idea to compassionately kill the others so that they can finally escape their tortured existence—picking up on the plan, Ellen kills Nimdok as Ted kills the others and then her. As Ellen dies, Ted hopes that the ambiguous expression on her face is one of gratitude, suggesting that he did care about Ellen on some level despite his disrespectful treatment of her.
Ellen 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 Ellen or refer to Ellen . 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:
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I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream Quotes
Ellen was grateful, though. She took me twice out of turn. Even that had ceased to matter. And she never came, so why bother?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Ellen Character Timeline in I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
The timeline below shows where the character Ellen appears in I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
...at the gruesome sight anyway, and Gorrister gazes up at the “voo-doo icon” of himself. Ellen strokes Gorrister’s hair, and he wonders aloud why AM doesn’t just kill them. The narrator...
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Ellen begs the narrator, Ted, to agree to go to the ice caves. He gives in,...
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As they make their way to the ice caves, Nimdok and Gorrister carry Ellen, while Benny and Ted bookend the group in an effort to insulate and protect Ellen...
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Suddenly, Ellen starts screaming at Benny, who has been muttering that he’s going to escape. Ted thinks...
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Benny jumps up to a metal ledge and Ellen cries for Ted and Nimdok to help him, but Ted thinks that he and the...
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Gorrister slaps Ellen, who dissolves into tears, a reaction which Ted bitterly thinks is just a defense mechanism....
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...moving toward them. Benny begins whining like an animal again; Nimdok holds back tears, and Ellen and Gorrister cling to one another. Terrible smells of rotting flowers, spoiled milk, and human...
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Ted thinks bitterly about his companions, especially “that dirty bitch Ellen.” Prior to their captivity, Benny had been a college professor, whip-smart and attractive. But AM...
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...it is clear that AM has affected him in an especially deep way. AM left Ellen largely the same, though “more of a slut than she had ever been,” as far...
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As the group pursues the hurricane bird, an earthquake strikes and swallows up Ellen and Nimdok, though in the evening, “the heavenly legion bore them to us with a...
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...ice and swiftly stabs Benny in the side and Gorrister in the throat. Catching on, Ellen launches herself at Nimdok, stabbing him with an icicle. Ted hears AM breathe in sharply,...
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Ted looks at Ellen’s “pleading” face, and “the way she [holds] herself ready,” knowing that he only has a...
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...he saved his companions from endless torture, he still feels haunted by the look on Ellen’s face when he killed her. In order to keep Ted from committing suicide, AM has...
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