"Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman

“He had become a personality, something they had filtered out of the system many decades ago.”

The Harlequin hasn’t been named yet, but the story reveals that the problem is that the anonymous rebel is a personality, suggesting both that he has some fame/notoriety but also that the source of his notoriety is his unique charisma. The use of the words “filtered” and “system” likens this society to a waterworks or city sewer system, suggesting that the Harlequin’s personality is dirty or infectious.

“Even in the cubicles of the hierarchy, where fear was generated, seldom suffered, he was called the Ticktockman.”

The phrase “cubicles of the hierarchy” suggests the bureaucratic nature of this society; the authorities are banal office workers. They evoke fear in those lower down but rarely suffer it. Only the Ticktockman unsettles those at the top.

“Jelly beans! Millions and billions of purples and yellows and greens and licorice and grape and raspberry and mint and round and smooth and crunchy outside and soft-mealy inside and sugary and bouncing jouncing tumbling clittering clattering skittering fell on the heads and shoulders and hardhats and carapaces of the Timkin workers, tinkling on the slidewalk and bouncing away and rolling about underfoot and filling the sky on their way down with all the colors of joy and childhood and holidays, coming down in a steady rain, a solid wash, a torrent of color and sweetness out of the sky from above, and entering a universe of sanity and metronomic order with quite-mad coocoo newness. Jelly beans!”

This paragraph is the most famous paragraph in the story. Bookended by two exclamations of “jelly beans,” the rest of it is a single, long run-on sentence using polysyndeton to link together descriptions of the jelly beans’ color, texture, sound, and movement, before moving to longer clauses. The end of the sentence focuses on the emotions evoked in the factory workers by the rain of jelly beans—feelings of joy, sweetness, and newness.

“The System had been seven minutes’ worth of disrupted. It was a tiny matter, one hardly worthy of note, but in a society where the single driving force was order and unity and equality and promptness and clocklike precision and attention to the clock, reverence of the gods of the passage of time, it was a disaster of major importance.”

Ellison uses more polysyndeton here, and the effect is to overwhelm with urgency and self-certainty, as though the narrator is speaking on behalf of the society itself. There is also a small irony, which is that the narrator calls attention to a “single driving force” and then names six distinct forces. This is also the first mention of gods of time, which is an image that comes up again.

“And so it goes goes goes goes goes tick tock tick tock tick tock and one day we no longer let time serve us, we serve time and we are slaves of the schedule, worshippers of the sun’s passing, bound into a life predicated on restrictions because the system will not function if we don’t keep the schedule tight.”

After a page of vignettes, each ending with the resigned “and so it goes,” Ellison emphasizes the never-ending nature of the System with the repetition of “goes,” which segues into a mechanical “tick tock.” The rest of the sentence is stream of consciousness, a series of mindless statements acquiescing to the worship of time.

“And so, by this simple scientific expedient (utilizing a scientific process held dearly secret by the Ticktockman’s office) the System was maintained. It was the only expedient thing to do. It was, after all, patriotic. The schedules had to be met. After all, there was a war on! But, wasn’t there always?”

The Golden Age of science fiction was very interested in inventing and explaining scientific processes, but this New Wave story elides explanation altogether by saying that it’s “secret.” Here the story links science with practicality and patriotism, as though all are a result of rational thought. The narrator ends with a rhetorical question to make the audience wonder if never-ending war can be a good reason for oppression.

“No need to be sorry. You’re always saying ‘I’m sorry.’ You have such massive guilt, Everett, it’s really very sad.”

Pretty Alice presents her critique of the Harlequin’s character as an over-developed sense of guilt. Since she is the only character who knows him personally, this is a valuable perspective on his character. However, she says this in an argument, calling its objectivity into question.

“The Harlequin stalked out, slamming the door, which sighed shut softly, and locked itself.”

The verb Ellison uses for the way the Harlequin shuts the door is “slam,” but the door itself does not actually slam, suggesting that the door has its own agenda and will. The soft shutting of the door recalls the softness of the Ticktockman, which makes even the Harlequin’s home hostile to his will.

“Why let them order you about? Why let them tell you to hurry and scurry like ants or maggots? Take your time! Saunter a while! Enjoy the sunshine, enjoy the breeze, let life carry you at your own pace! Don’t be slaves of time, it’s a helluva way to die, slowly, by degrees… down with the Ticktockman!”

This is the Harlequin’s mission statement and the second use of the term “slaves” in the story, which suggests the System is using the characters in some way. It also compares the people to ants or maggots, recalling the dehumanization of people in this society.

“They used dogs. They used probes. They used cardioplate crossoffs. They used teepers. They used bribery. They used stiktytes. They used intimidation. They used torment. They used torture. They used finks. They used cops. They used search&seizure. They used fallaron. They used betterment incentive. They used fingerprints. They used Bertillon. They used cunning. They used guile. They used treachery. They used Raoul Mitgong, but he didn’t help much. They used applied physics. They used techniques of criminology. And what the hell: they caught him.”

This paragraph uses parataxis, short choppy sentences, to create a staccato rhythm like the mechanical ticking that dominates the story. It lists many techniques the authorities used to find the Harlequin, some of which are recognizable, some of which are not. There is humor here, too, in the offhand reference to a character named Raoul Mitgong who isn’t referenced in any other part of the story and “didn’t help much.”

“‘Repent, Harlequin!’ said the Ticktockman. ‘Get stuffed!’ the Harlequin replied, sneering.”

This is the sentence that gives the story its title. The Ticktockman uses a short imperative, to which the Harlequin replies with his own imperative. The tone of each is very different, however; by using the word “repent,” the Ticktockman calls to mind ideas of sin and religion. In contrast, the Harlequin’s reply, “get stuffed,” is intentionally casual, rude, even heretical if one sees the Ticktockman as a religious authority.

“The Harlequin appeared on the communications web, appearing elfish and dimpled and bright-eyed, and not at all brainwashed, and he said he had been wrong, that it was a good, a very good thing indeed, to belong, and be right on time hip-ho and away we go, and everyone stared up at him on the public screens that covered an entire city block, and they said to themselves, well, you see, he was just a nut after all, and if that’s the way the system is run, then let’s do it that way, because it doesn’t pay to fight city hall, or in this case, the Ticktockman.”

In this run-on sentence, the narrator first objectively reports the Harlequin’s return. Then, with the phrase “hip-ho and away we go,” the narration seems to include the narrator’s own opinion, mocking the breezy tone of the brainwashed Harlequin’s repentant speech. Finally, at the end of the sentence, the point of view slides into the minds of the crowd as the narrator reports their collective dismissal of the entire ordeal.

“So Everett C. Marm was destroyed, which was a loss, because of what Thoreau said earlier, but you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, and in every revolution, a few die who shouldn’t, but they have to, because that’s the way it happens, and if you make only a little change, then it seems to be worthwhile.”

In another run-on sentence, the narrator explicitly reveals their political opinions, agreeing with the Thoreau quote early in the story. However, the offhand delivery of these sentiments makes the narrative tone here seem almost as resigned to oppression and failed revolution as the rest of the crowd watching the Harlequin repent.