“’Repent Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktock
Man”
 “‘Repent
Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktock Man”
Pay attention to the punctuation and
capitalization
 No
rhetorical questions
 No quotations (from the text or general
quotations)
 No clichés
Do you ever
read something in
a book and the
words make you
picture something
in your head? In
Harlan Ellison’s
“’Repent….
“Chaos is a lot
like gravity, all it
needs is a little
push.” – Heath
Ledger as The
Joker
The jelly
beans the
Harlequin used in
the short story
“’Repent…
In his short story, “’Repent Harlequin!’
Said the Ticktockman,” Harlan Ellison depicts
a futuristic society that seems obsessed with
time. Through this reoccurring theme about
the importance of time, Ellison manages to
drive home a lesson to the reader about the
value of time and its impact on society. This
impact is easily seen, especially in a
dystopian world where daily life hinges on
time itself.
He used the jelly
beans to disrupt
everyone’s shift. “Jelly
Beans! Millions and
billions of purple and
yellows and greens…The
shift workers howled
and laughed and were
pelted.” To me it seems
as he accomplished his
plan, he disrupted…
Stuck in the paragraph
All of this is run by
one powerful leader.
The Ticktock man “is
capable of revoking the
minutes, the hours, the
days, the nights, the
years of your life.” The
Ticktock man rules
through fear and
death…
Blended
 Too
long: Your quote should not take up more
than 3 lines. Choose the best part of the
quote and use ellipses.
 Weak/does not support claim: Sometimes
you have chosen a quote that does not
directly support the claim that you have
made. Choose your quotes WISELY.
Time is the most important aspect and the
focus of the story. In the story time is thought to
be equal or more important than your life. “You
don’t call a man a hated name, not when that
man, behind his mask, is capable of revoking the
minutes, the hours, the days and nights, the
years of your life.” Time is supposed to help you
not hurt you.
* Is that really the best piece of evidence that
could have been chosen to support that claim?
 The
Harlequin spills
one hundred and
fifty thousand
dollars worth of
jelly beans onto the
factory floor, which
causes all activity
and “the master
schedule was
thrown off by seven
minutes.”
 The
Harlequin spills
one hundred and
fifty thousand
dollars worth of
jelly beans onto the
factory floor, which
causes all activity
and “the master
schedule [to be]
thrown off by seven
minutes.”
 Indention
– be reasonable
 TS/claim, EV, CM, CM, EV, CM, CM, CS
 NEVER begin a paragraph with a question or a
quotation
 NEVER end a paragraph with a question or a
quotation
 Do not give your opinion – just say it
 In
my opinion,
Ellison uses this idea
to really explain
that our life is run
by time…
 This quote
specifically shows
how the actions of
one person screwed
up the whole
communities
schedule.
 In
my opinion,
Ellison uses this idea
to really explain
that our life is run
by time…
 This quote
specifically shows
how The actions of
one person screwed
up the whole
communities
schedule.
 The
decision to take time off someone’s life
shouldn’t be made by such an unimportant
mistake. Time is important to some extent,
but not to the point where a human life
should be taken as punishment for being
late.
What does Ellison seem to be saying…
If you wrote less than ¾ of the front page then it
is very likely that you failed. You simply cannot
develop a substantial argument in that amount of
space. What you have may be good but it is not
enough. one body paragraph with one example
and a few commentary sentences, while they may
be on point and well written, will cause your
essay to be severely underdeveloped.
 Harlan
Ellison describes a world…
 The Harlequin disrupts

VS
 The
Harlequin disrupted
 If
you still have questions about your ICTW
there are two more steps that you can take.
 1-go to the weebly and download the rubric
AND the sample essay. Read through them
both.
 2-attend tutorials (you must do 1 first and
bring it with you)