The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World
Encyclopedia
"The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World", is a short story from Harlan Ellison
's 1967 anthology
, Dangerous Visions
, in which he presents a collection of several different views of science fiction and fantasy, through 34 authors (himself included). This was his story.
's story (immediately before it in the book), "A Toy for Juliette
". In it, the legendary Jack the Ripper
has been somehow yanked into a futuristic metropolis of sterility, where anyone is free to do what they want, however arcane or illegal. He is brought before Juliette, a girl who is appropriately named after the Marquis de Sade
's Juliette
.
Upon killing Juliette, much to the delight of a City denizen who seems to be either her father or lover (or both), Jack the Ripper
is transported back to London, where he commits another of his infamous killings. However, he is surprised to find out that there are other mental presences or personalities somehow coexisting within his own mind, commenting on the brutality of the act as if they are audience members or high-society socialites critiquing a work of art in a museum.
It eventually becomes clear that, although recognizably human in form, the future City’s denizens in fact have powers of matter manipulation, time travel, and telepathy. They thus can both read and manipulate Jack the Ripper's mind, and they eventually proceed (for their own malign amusement) to mentally expose him to his own sub-conscious lusts, desires, and petty hatreds that he had previously suppressed but which had actually driven him to his infamous crimes. The Ripper character realizes that he had subconsciously persuaded himself that his killings were purely moralistic in intent, meant to draw attention to the injustices, inequalities, social wretchedness, and debauchery of industrial
, Victorian society. To Jack’s despair, his “true,” completely base motivations are fully revealed to him by the City’s denizens, after which they delight in his ensuing psychological anguish.
Once aware of their presence, he is then yanked back again to the City of the future by its seemingly superhuman inhabitants, for purposes that are not yet evident. He kills one of the original members of the City’s social group in rage.
In the final denouement, Jack the Ripper is fooled by the City into believing that this destructive act in their presence has created a breakdown in their utopia and their ability to control the City’s functioning. He is implicitly led to believe that he has all the power and is an uncontrollable, random evil in their presence. He uses this perceived power to go on his own killing spree meant to terrify the City’s residents and punish them for their mockery of his motives and their use of him as a puppet. After murdering scores of city denizens in the harshest manner imaginable, in a veritable frenzy of bloodlust (described by Ellison in unflinching detail), Jack finds out to his own horror that the City in fact allowed him to pursue his path of destruction out of a collective yearning for maximum entertainment value. Having their desires sated, the still-living City denizens use their collective mental control over physical matter to disarm him, leaving him to roam the still-clean, still-gleaming and bright City streets aimlessly, shouting and asserting that he really is a "bad man," a man to be respected and feared rather than mocked and thrown aside.
“Prowler” in the Context of Ellison’s Larger Body of Work
Ellison has given few clues as to the artistic or socio-political goals of this piece of grand guignol
, which is perhaps not surprising, given that his writing style has often been depicted as stream-of-consciousness in nature, at least once a story finally comes to fruition or maturity in his mind. Notably, Ellison's writing style is highly emotive, extremely expressive, sometimes aggressive in choice of grammar, and filled with moral outrage or alternatively, poignant, nostalgic, bittersweet sensibilities. He employs a direct, punchy writing style that seems intended to shock, entertain, and provoke the reader, all at once. Despite this approach, which some might liken to a verbal assault, Ellison is a self-professed, deeply social and political writer who means for his stories to engender serious thought as well as visceral emotional reactions.
In “Prowler,” despite Ellison’s overt use of multiple characters with purely sadistic motivations, the narrative is clearly meant thematically as a strong critique of moral nihilism. In turn, he depicts such collective social nihilism as a possible outcome of the creation of a far-future material paradise. Notably, while Jack the Ripper is certainly portrayed by the author as psychotic, vicious, and dangerous, he is also depicted as having a strong moral sensibility, however self-delusional or self-serving in nature. In stark contrast, the far-future City denizens are depicted as completely jaded, hardened, and Machiavellian
in character, their main purpose seeming to be to sate their own desires, often at the expense of each other, including the titillation that comes from voyeuristic death and mutilation.
Meanwhile, the amoral – even sociopathic
– nature of the citizenry acts as a stark contrast to the City itself, which consists of spotless architecture that seems impervious to the ravages of age and physical decay. Thus, Ellison’s implicit social critique is seen in the paradoxical fact that the hyper-modern, gleaming, futuristic, brightly metallic City that he describes is, in fact, inhabited by people who are far more cruel and vicious in their amorality than Jack the Ripper himself, who comes from the dank, dark, and impoverished streets of Victorian London. Indeed, the City’s citizens have apparently become so bored in the midst of this perfection that their notion of amusement and even artistry and creativity is to pursue the mental stimulation that comes from watching heinous, barbarous acts of graphic violence. Thus, Ellison posits that a perfect material existence could create humans (or post-humans) so venal that they would easily outstrip the infamous Jack the Ripper in the depths of their depravity.
Similarities to 21st Century Horror Films Depicting Torture
Ellison’s short story could also be seen as eerily predictive of 21st century trends. Specifically, it could be viewed as a prescient commentary on the eventual move toward “splatter films” or more specifically, a sub-genre of horror films starting in the early 2000s that are now collectively referred to as “torture porn.” There is a growing filmography in which tension and fear comes not from traditional use of suspense but rather purely from the depiction of graphic mutilation, torture, and highly painful, drawn-out deaths of innocent people. His story incorporates literary images of murder and mutilation that would be well at home in movies such as the hugely popular Saw (film)
and Hostel series – movies that have drawn increasing opprobrium from concerned sociologists
and public commentators for their meticulous depictions of physical and mental torture. However, the difference between Ellison's early work and the latter sub-genre of modern horror films is that Ellison's story is meant as a strong critique of such violence and sadism, even though he is every bit as explicit as these contemporary films.
Themes Carried forward into Other Works
Ellison would go on to create another work with shocking racial, ethnic, and political violence, "Knox," published in 1974, depicting an alternate American reality in which a fascist
government party has taken power, with paramilitary
links to militant societal groupings. Like in "Prowler," the moral lessons of Knox are not easily discerned upon first reading, and the uninitiated reader could leave their first exposure to either story believing that Ellison is a glorifier of wantonly destructive and malicious violence. Instead, considering his entire opus of works and his prevalent self-commentaries on his own career and ethical motivations, it is clear he means to show how human beings, no matter how "modern" they become in sensibility, remain capable of using violence as a tool of power . In Knox, this power is used to terrify minority groups and suppress minority political views, thereby ensuring mainstream political submission.
Similarities to other writers
“Prowler” evokes images not dissimilar to those later depicted by Brett Easton Ellis in the much-debated novel "American Psycho
," written 24 years later, in which a young Wall Street
vice president with immaculate social graces and grooming, and several Harvard
degrees, becomes a rampant and sadistic serial killer
among the ultra-stylish society of New York
’s financial elite. Additionally, as an author who writes about the innate power of violence as a weapon of terror to silence dissent and ensure disempowerment of deviants, Ellison is arguably a literary successor to social and political commentator George Orwell
.
Harlan Ellison
Harlan Jay Ellison is an American writer. His principal genre is speculative fiction.His published works include over 1,700 short stories, novellas, screenplays, teleplays, essays, a wide range of criticism covering literature, film, television, and print media...
's 1967 anthology
Anthology
An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...
, Dangerous Visions
Dangerous Visions
Dangerous Visions is a science fiction short story anthology edited by Harlan Ellison, published in 1967.A path-breaking collection, Dangerous Visions helped define the New Wave science fiction movement, particularly in its depiction of sex in science fiction...
, in which he presents a collection of several different views of science fiction and fantasy, through 34 authors (himself included). This was his story.
Plot summary
It is written as a follow-up to Robert BlochRobert Bloch
Robert Albert Bloch was a prolific American writer, primarily of crime, horror and science fiction. He is best known as the writer of Psycho, the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock...
's story (immediately before it in the book), "A Toy for Juliette
A Toy for Juliette
"A Toy for Juliette" is a short story by Robert Bloch from Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions, about Jack the Ripper, being pulled into a dystopic future by a sadistic femme fatale and her mysterious grandfather. There, she attempts to seduce him, only for Jack to find a knife underneath a pillow...
". In it, the legendary Jack the Ripper
Jack the Ripper
"Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the...
has been somehow yanked into a futuristic metropolis of sterility, where anyone is free to do what they want, however arcane or illegal. He is brought before Juliette, a girl who is appropriately named after the Marquis de Sade
Marquis de Sade
Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade was a French aristocrat, revolutionary politician, philosopher, and writer famous for his libertine sexuality and lifestyle...
's Juliette
L'Histoire de Juliette
Juliette is a novel written by the Marquis de Sade and published 1797–1801, accompanying Sade's Nouvelle Justine. While Justine, Juliette's sister, was a virtuous woman who consequently encountered nothing but despair and abuse, Juliette is an amoral nymphomaniac who ends up successful and...
.
Upon killing Juliette, much to the delight of a City denizen who seems to be either her father or lover (or both), Jack the Ripper
Jack the Ripper
"Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the...
is transported back to London, where he commits another of his infamous killings. However, he is surprised to find out that there are other mental presences or personalities somehow coexisting within his own mind, commenting on the brutality of the act as if they are audience members or high-society socialites critiquing a work of art in a museum.
It eventually becomes clear that, although recognizably human in form, the future City’s denizens in fact have powers of matter manipulation, time travel, and telepathy. They thus can both read and manipulate Jack the Ripper's mind, and they eventually proceed (for their own malign amusement) to mentally expose him to his own sub-conscious lusts, desires, and petty hatreds that he had previously suppressed but which had actually driven him to his infamous crimes. The Ripper character realizes that he had subconsciously persuaded himself that his killings were purely moralistic in intent, meant to draw attention to the injustices, inequalities, social wretchedness, and debauchery of industrial
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
, Victorian society. To Jack’s despair, his “true,” completely base motivations are fully revealed to him by the City’s denizens, after which they delight in his ensuing psychological anguish.
Once aware of their presence, he is then yanked back again to the City of the future by its seemingly superhuman inhabitants, for purposes that are not yet evident. He kills one of the original members of the City’s social group in rage.
In the final denouement, Jack the Ripper is fooled by the City into believing that this destructive act in their presence has created a breakdown in their utopia and their ability to control the City’s functioning. He is implicitly led to believe that he has all the power and is an uncontrollable, random evil in their presence. He uses this perceived power to go on his own killing spree meant to terrify the City’s residents and punish them for their mockery of his motives and their use of him as a puppet. After murdering scores of city denizens in the harshest manner imaginable, in a veritable frenzy of bloodlust (described by Ellison in unflinching detail), Jack finds out to his own horror that the City in fact allowed him to pursue his path of destruction out of a collective yearning for maximum entertainment value. Having their desires sated, the still-living City denizens use their collective mental control over physical matter to disarm him, leaving him to roam the still-clean, still-gleaming and bright City streets aimlessly, shouting and asserting that he really is a "bad man," a man to be respected and feared rather than mocked and thrown aside.
“Prowler” in the Context of Ellison’s Larger Body of Work
Ellison has given few clues as to the artistic or socio-political goals of this piece of grand guignol
Grand Guignol
Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol — known as the Grand Guignol — was a theatre in the Pigalle area of Paris . From its opening in 1897 until its closing in 1962 it specialized in naturalistic horror shows...
, which is perhaps not surprising, given that his writing style has often been depicted as stream-of-consciousness in nature, at least once a story finally comes to fruition or maturity in his mind. Notably, Ellison's writing style is highly emotive, extremely expressive, sometimes aggressive in choice of grammar, and filled with moral outrage or alternatively, poignant, nostalgic, bittersweet sensibilities. He employs a direct, punchy writing style that seems intended to shock, entertain, and provoke the reader, all at once. Despite this approach, which some might liken to a verbal assault, Ellison is a self-professed, deeply social and political writer who means for his stories to engender serious thought as well as visceral emotional reactions.
In “Prowler,” despite Ellison’s overt use of multiple characters with purely sadistic motivations, the narrative is clearly meant thematically as a strong critique of moral nihilism. In turn, he depicts such collective social nihilism as a possible outcome of the creation of a far-future material paradise. Notably, while Jack the Ripper is certainly portrayed by the author as psychotic, vicious, and dangerous, he is also depicted as having a strong moral sensibility, however self-delusional or self-serving in nature. In stark contrast, the far-future City denizens are depicted as completely jaded, hardened, and Machiavellian
Machiavellianism
Machiavellianism is, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, "the employment of cunning and duplicity in statecraft or in general conduct", deriving from the Italian Renaissance diplomat and writer Niccolò Machiavelli, who wrote Il Principe and other works...
in character, their main purpose seeming to be to sate their own desires, often at the expense of each other, including the titillation that comes from voyeuristic death and mutilation.
Meanwhile, the amoral – even sociopathic
Antisocial personality disorder
Antisocial personality disorder is described by the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, fourth edition , as an Axis II personality disorder characterized by "...a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood...
– nature of the citizenry acts as a stark contrast to the City itself, which consists of spotless architecture that seems impervious to the ravages of age and physical decay. Thus, Ellison’s implicit social critique is seen in the paradoxical fact that the hyper-modern, gleaming, futuristic, brightly metallic City that he describes is, in fact, inhabited by people who are far more cruel and vicious in their amorality than Jack the Ripper himself, who comes from the dank, dark, and impoverished streets of Victorian London. Indeed, the City’s citizens have apparently become so bored in the midst of this perfection that their notion of amusement and even artistry and creativity is to pursue the mental stimulation that comes from watching heinous, barbarous acts of graphic violence. Thus, Ellison posits that a perfect material existence could create humans (or post-humans) so venal that they would easily outstrip the infamous Jack the Ripper in the depths of their depravity.
Similarities to 21st Century Horror Films Depicting Torture
Ellison’s short story could also be seen as eerily predictive of 21st century trends. Specifically, it could be viewed as a prescient commentary on the eventual move toward “splatter films” or more specifically, a sub-genre of horror films starting in the early 2000s that are now collectively referred to as “torture porn.” There is a growing filmography in which tension and fear comes not from traditional use of suspense but rather purely from the depiction of graphic mutilation, torture, and highly painful, drawn-out deaths of innocent people. His story incorporates literary images of murder and mutilation that would be well at home in movies such as the hugely popular Saw (film)
Saw (film)
Saw is a 2004 American independent horror film directed by James Wan. The screenplay, written by Leigh Whannell, is based on a story by Wan and Whannell. The film stars Cary Elwes, Danny Glover, Monica Potter, Michael Emerson, Ken Leung, Whannell and Tobin Bell...
and Hostel series – movies that have drawn increasing opprobrium from concerned sociologists
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
and public commentators for their meticulous depictions of physical and mental torture. However, the difference between Ellison's early work and the latter sub-genre of modern horror films is that Ellison's story is meant as a strong critique of such violence and sadism, even though he is every bit as explicit as these contemporary films.
Themes Carried forward into Other Works
Ellison would go on to create another work with shocking racial, ethnic, and political violence, "Knox," published in 1974, depicting an alternate American reality in which a fascist
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
government party has taken power, with paramilitary
Paramilitary
A paramilitary is a force whose function and organization are similar to those of a professional military, but which is not considered part of a state's formal armed forces....
links to militant societal groupings. Like in "Prowler," the moral lessons of Knox are not easily discerned upon first reading, and the uninitiated reader could leave their first exposure to either story believing that Ellison is a glorifier of wantonly destructive and malicious violence. Instead, considering his entire opus of works and his prevalent self-commentaries on his own career and ethical motivations, it is clear he means to show how human beings, no matter how "modern" they become in sensibility, remain capable of using violence as a tool of power . In Knox, this power is used to terrify minority groups and suppress minority political views, thereby ensuring mainstream political submission.
Similarities to other writers
“Prowler” evokes images not dissimilar to those later depicted by Brett Easton Ellis in the much-debated novel "American Psycho
American Psycho
American Psycho is a psychological thriller and satirical novel by Bret Easton Ellis, published in 1991. The story is told in the first person by the protagonist, serial killer and Manhattan businessman Patrick Bateman. The book's graphic violence and sexual content generated a great deal of...
," written 24 years later, in which a young Wall Street
Wall Street
Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...
vice president with immaculate social graces and grooming, and several Harvard
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
degrees, becomes a rampant and sadistic serial killer
Serial killer
A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...
among the ultra-stylish society of New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
’s financial elite. Additionally, as an author who writes about the innate power of violence as a weapon of terror to silence dissent and ensure disempowerment of deviants, Ellison is arguably a literary successor to social and political commentator George Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
.