Repent, Harlequin, Said The Ticktockman By Harlan Ellison

The conflict between individualism and conformity in a dystopian society is the principle idea which is explored in the 1965 short story: "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman by Harlan Ellison. “Repent, Harlequin” Said the Ticktockman, is a short science fiction story set in a dystopian future where time is strictly monitored and governed by a character named the Ticktockman. In the story, Everett C. Marm, known as the Harlequin lives in this world where time is highly regulated, and any deviation from the strict time schedule is punished. The Harlequin becomes a rebel against the society, and the majority of the short story is the conflict between the authoritative Ticktockman and the individualist Harlequin.

Brave New World is a dystopian

Repent Harlequin was written in 1965, in the middle of the Cold War, during the Vietnam war, and two years after JFK’s assassination. This time period was a time of large social progressiveness with Martin Luther King Jr being a prominent figure. The hippie movement was a large ideology around that time. Hippies were a cultural movement predominantly in the United States where its fundamental ethos was of peace, individuality, and rebellion against societal conventions. This ideology can be heavily seen in Repent Harlequin as the Harlequin represents the human desire for individualism, in the face of an authoritative rule. It can be also noted that the Harlequin in the story is also never physically violent, and only disrupts the system, causing people to be late, this is a very clear allusion to the idea of peace and nonconformity that was at the core of the hippie

Power is one of Amin Malak’s six characteristics of a dystopia. In Repent Harlequin, power and authority is represented by the Ticktokman, the society in the story is highly efficient, so that individualism in any way is almost completely absent in the common population. When someone is behind schedule in the world, they are punished severely such as being fired from their job, or losing time off of their own life. The world in Repent Harlequin is not as expatiated as the world in Brave New World due the the short nature of the story, but Brave New World explores power in a dystopian society completely differently. Although both worlds in the two stories feature authoritarian regimes with the loss of individuality, what makes them unique is the way in which order is enforced in the worlds. As seen in Repent Harlequin, there are harsh punishments for not following the rules. In Brave New World, this order is enforced in the opposite extreme, where people are kept in order by pleasure and