Hart is a freelance writer and former editor of a literary magazine. In the following essay, she examines the didactic characteristics of Ellison's writing and the shortcomings in his arguments in his short story.

Harlan Ellison, in his introduction to his collection of short stories Shatterday, states that his writing is all about telling people that they are not alone in their suffering of the "mortal dreads" of living on this earth. "That's my job," he writes. "To stir the soup, to bite your thigh, to get you angry so you keep the conversation going. . . . Then I can translate it into the mortal dreads we all share and fire them back at you transmogrified, reshaped as amusing or frightening fables." Ellison has a vision, and he wants to share that vision as passionately as a revivalist preacher wants to share his vision of salvation. And because of...