I Have No Mouth, and I must Scream is a story about a supreme computer essentially designed by humans to fight wars. This, however, backfired on the humans. They had made this computer into an all knowing, all powerful, and all being thing. Something like a god, according to the five humans in the story. This mastermind computer, completely abolished human kind, keeping only five alive for over a hundred years just for its own amusement. AM does sadistic and revengeful things to these five humans. Ted, the narrator of the story, thoroughly describes the events that take place in the story. He tells that the five survivors, including himself, been trapped for over a hundred years. They were kept alive but for all five of them dying would've been a better option. Am kept them alive just to torment them. Throughout the story Ted and the other four humans, Benny, Nimdok, Ellen, and Gorrister decide to travel to some ice caves where they think they'll find something to eat. They go through a lot of hardships in their journey. AM tortures them and for it, it's all just a never ending game. In the end, they all end up killing each other and Ted is the last one alive. AM was furious, however, he couldn’t do anything about it. He couldn’t revive them. This made him take out all his anger on Ted, converting him into a big chunk of jelly. This, it did so that Ted wouldn’t try and kill himself in any way possible.

One theme that I found to be relevant in the story is "Desperation can make you do unreasonable things". Ted tells the reader how the other four have something against him. AM barely had done any damage to him. He was the youngest of the group, and he was also the most normal one when it came to appearance. This is why he says they 'envied' him. The five humans had gone about three days without having anything to eat, and the last thing they did consume was some worms. Then AM sent down some manna that, according to Ted, tasted like pig urine. Nimdok had foreseen that there was food at the ice caverns. Canned goods. Of course, AM was the one who made him hallucinate about the ice caverns and the canned food. AM had everything planned. The ice caverns were about a hundred miles from where they were at that moment. But they had no other choice. Gorrister and Ted were not really certain, but what else was left for them. Nothing. They needed food. The five humans then decided to head to the ice caverns. The theme comes in at the very end of the story. Benny went psycho when he realized that the canned goods were sealed and they had no way of opening them. So he attacked Gorrister. Then Ted took care of Benny and finished Gorrister as he lay on the ground. Ellen attacked Nimdok. Ted then took out Ellen. This is what desperation made them do. They did the unthinkable. When you have no way out of something you go for the unreasonable and you do without second thought. Extreme desperation. I can relate this theme to the movie "Brothers". There was a scene where a group of soldiers were sent on a mission. As they were in the chopper on their way to the mission, they were attacked by a group of terrorists. Two soldiers were captured, the captain and a private. The rest fled safely. These two men were held captive in various camps, they were treated extremely bad and tortured at times. One day the terrorists decided that one of the soldiers should kill the other. They told the captain to take out his fellow soldier with a metal stick, if not they would shoot him. The terrorists were recoding this. At first the captain was hesitant. He didn’t want to do it. Who would? The terrorists insisted that if he didn’t do it they were going to kill him. In the end, in an act of desperation, the captain did take out his soldier. There was no other way, it was either his life or his soldier's. Desperation can make you do unreasonable things. Another relevant theme is "The Displaced Narrator". The narrator from the story who is also the main character goes through changes, not necessarily fast ones, but he goes through changes while he is in the world controlled by AM. Ted has to get used to many things that AM is making happen. Throughout a span of over a hundred years Ted gets used to extreme torturing by the master computer, he had to get used to the deformities of his mates in the story, but most importantly he gets used to living in a world with no end. Ted learns how to deal with this. He is calm about things and he knows AM wouldn’t let them die even if they tried. In the end he is the one who saves his mates by killing them. He did this because he was the more aware one out of all of them. However, AM then turns him into a big slime ball so that he could never try to kill himself. He was going to be there for all eternity. Powerless, and without a mouth to shout his pain.