Gardner 1

Jelly Beans and Machines

There is an old Japanese proverb that touches on the dangers of nonconformity: The nail
that sticks out gets hammered down. Harlan Ellisons Repent, Harlequin! said the
Ticktockman and Sophie Treadwells Machinal hyperbolize breaks in social order that arise due
to oppression. While Ellisons short story hints at a horrifying future, Treadwells play takes
place in the past (it was contemporary when she wrote it). This unearths the notion that bleak
corruption dwells within the past, present, and future and questions whether humanity will ever
rise above or forever descend lower into the cogs of the machine. It also questions whether this
system can be successfully fought against or if everyone is doomed to be hammered down by the
unsympathetic hammer wielded by The Man. Repent, Harlequin! said the Ticktockman and
Machinal use unusual rhythmic language, emblematic stock characters, and the theme of
squashing rebellion
The unusual use of language employed by Treadwell announces an entrance into another
world that may resemble reality in themes and operation, though is stylistically punctuated in
ways to denote unorthodoxy and emphasize discordance. The opening scene of Machinal is set
in an office with desks and files and stenographers and clerks, just like any office, but the set and
staging directions combined with the dialogue unveil the helter-skelter alteration of reality. The
dialogue jumps from thread to thread: Hot dog. George H. Jones CompanyHelloHello.
Awaiting your answer 5,000 10,000 15,000 That letter done? (Treadwell 10).
This jarring clash of conversations contributes to the overall sense of mania that drives the
protagonist mad. Everyday life is filled with snippets of disparate dialogue, but Treadwells
hyperbolic treatment of this normal occurrence presents biting commentary on the cyclical
mundanity of office life. Weiss of East Tennessee State University pays homage to Treadwells

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effective use of Expressionist techniques, which creates a claustrophobic world and criticizes
the mechanical age (Weiss 4).
Both works have maddening, staccato rhythms. Tick tock. Tick tock. Hello hello hello.
Tick tock. Tick tock. Hot dog. Tick tock. Tick Tock. Ill not submit any moreIll not
submitIll not submit (Treadwell 31). Machinal is set to the sound of whirring machines, and
there is an attempt to catch the rhythm of our common city speech, its brassy sound, its trick of
repetition, etc. (Treadwell xi). The world of the Harlequin and the Ticktockman are likewise
dominated by mechanical order. Ellison describes the world as a society where the single
driving force was order and unity and promptness and clocklike precision and attention to the
clock, reverence of the gods of the passage of time (4).
Treadwell and Ellison pay special attention to the naming of things and people. In
Machinal, the characters are merely types that signify tasks and positions within society.
Stenographer, Adding Clerk, and Telephone Girl have no background stories or major roles in
the plotthe Doctor, the Judge, and the Priest are stock characters representing standard
conventions. Treadwells introduction to the plot states that it is a story of an ordinary young
woman, any woman (xi). The protagonist has been deconstructed in a way that makes her place
in society paramount to her identity as an individual. Though she has a name (Helen Jones), she
is cast as A Young Woman. Treadwell is commenting on how society has squashed her
uniqueness and categorized her solely by her age and gender.
Ellisons dystopia follows the same pattern of removing personality. The Ticktockman
ruminates, This time-card I'm holding in my left hand has a name on it, but it is the name of
what he is, not who he is (Ellison 2). The Harlequin resembles that eccentric vein of
individualism that the young woman in Machinal so desperately tries to capture for herself.

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While Helen Jones is as plain as her name, Everett C. Marm (aka The Harlequin) has an elfish
grintanned features, a dimpled smile beneath a thatch of auburn hair, and a body decked
out in motely (Ellison 3). He warrants one of the only physical descriptions within the text. His
appearance is clownish and atypical, which juxtaposes the bland uniformity of the factory
workers. The Ticktockman stands for an idea more than a person. His mythic origin suggests he
gradually developed into a form and substance and had become a personality over
generations of industrialism (Ellison 1). The Ticktockman is just some manhe fulfills a role of
a warden of time. After he dies, another Ticktockman will most likely replace him. The
Ticktockman is a job or a title to the same extent of the Stenographer or the Adding Clerk. That
being said, the Harlequin, too, stands for something: an emblem of unorthodoxy and rebellion.
By confining characters into types, the authors are able to impress overarching commentaries on
societal truths and institutional failures.
The best way to thwart rebellion is to diminish all traces of individualism until nothing
remains but safe, approved notions about order and government. The young woman and the
Harlequin challenge the institutions that repress them through revolt. Treadwells protagonist,
trapped in a loveless marriage, protests against the rules that confine her. Instead of being an
affectionate, content stay-at-home wife and a nurturing mother, she entangles herself in a love
affair with an exciting world traveler and then in a bloody murder. The Harlequin rebels by
unleashing one thousand and fifty dollars worth of jelly beans to hamper the progress of the
factory (Ellison 3). Hellen and the Harlequin find solace in mayhem, because it sharply contrasts
the stuffy monotony and tight precision that suffocates them.
The conclusions of these works stand as testament to the ingrained efficiency of these
systems. Societal ills perpetuate due to the laws and regulations that keep them in check. The

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nails that stick up (the Young Woman and the Harlequin) get nailed down. The governments
have to purify the populace of any individuals that attempt to thwart the system by playing by
their own set of rules. The protagonist to Machinal is sentenced to the electric chair and the
Harlequin is sent to an institution where he is brainwashed into compliancy.
Treadwells exploration of crime against the institution is significantly more emotionally
charged than Ellisons. Repent, Harlequin! said the Ticktockman exposes a corrupt system via
a make-believe land of nonsense and frivolity. The Harlequin ludicrously weaponizes jelly beans
to make a political statement, whereas Helen Jones murders her husband with a bottle of stones.
Audiences have an easier time sympathizing with the Harlequins cause than the Young
Womans. Earle V. Bryant, in a brief analysis in Explicator, comments on the use of pranks and
high jinx in place of bullets and bombs (163). Bryant calls Marm a comic rebel-hero who
dispenses laugher instead of pain (163), whereas Helen Jones is a broken down, unnatural,
adulterous murderess. Though murder is inexcusable, she is ultimately a product of society. One
may even go so far as to argue that her role as a woman greatly limits her abilities to escape her
situation in a joyous manner like the Harlequin. Her sense of agency comes from her ability to
take lifebreaking the conventions of women being viewed as life-givers. Ellisons only female
character is a pretty young woman named Alice, who turns in Marm in a similar act of betrayal
as Helen Jones lover.
Society is wound and programed to the rhythm of a ticking clock. Only by exposing the
inner workings beneath the face can one have any hope of confronting the problem. Treadwell
argues that mankind is blind to it. Everyone is held to a standard, and most people conform to
that expected role without questioning the legitimacy of the system. Ellison explores what could
potentially arise if the powers that be feel so inclined to legally enforce what were at one point

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social norms (i.e., expectations of efficiency and punctuality). The Young Woman and the
Harlequin represent those crusaders for reform, but the governments essentially viewed them as
broken cogs in the machine that had to be removed for the betterment of the institutions.

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Works Cited
Bryant, Earle V. "Ellison's "Repent Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman'." Explicator 59.3 (2001):
163-5. ProQuest. Web. 19 Apr. 2016.
Ellison, Harlan. Repent, Harlequin, said the Ticktockman. 1965: 1-11. Web. [Retrieved from
PDF file on WebCampus].
Treadwell, Sophie. Machinal. London: Nick Hern Books, 2007. Print.
Weiss, Katherine. Sophie Treadwell's Machinal: Electrifying the Female Body. South
Atlantic Review 71.3 (2006): 4-14. Web. 18 April 2016.