A Community In Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron

Words: 1076
Pages: 5
Open Document
Kurt Vonnegut’s Short story, Harrison Bergeron, is a narrative about a community in the year 2081. In this society everybody is equal in strength, intelligence, beauty, and every other aspect that could make them stand out or seem better than another individual. The people that are born with advantages are given handicaps to lower their abilities to match those who are not as capable. Stronger people are given weights to weigh them down, smarter people are given earpieces to keep them from thinking, and beautiful people are forced to wear mask so they do not stand out. Vonnegut uses this future society to explain the events of a family and their son that was so gifted that he was considered a threat. In Harrison Bergeron, Kurt Vonnegut does …show more content…
These are the people that are exceptionally strong and intelligent to the point that they are considered a threat. People like this are forced to wear a great amount of handicaps even though it is almost impossible to lower them to the level that everybody else stands. Harrison was taken from his parents by the government when he was forteen years old. They locked him up away from the world to prevent him from using his advantages. Unlike his father, Harrison does not decide to keep his opinion to himself. While fighting for what he believed was right, he breaks out of him confinement and interrupts a television show to protest this unfair society. His protest includes him tearing his handicaps off in front of the whole nation and choosing a girl in which he dances with to show the whole world how much better things would be if they did not have handicaps. As a result of this the girl and him are both was shot and killed by the handicapper general. His determination to fix this situation makes him symbolise a christ like figure. 1 Peter 2:24 states “ who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness.” Harrison is similar to this because he gave his life fighting for what he felt was right. Although he did not die to forgive people of their sins, he gave his life fighting so that people could show their full potential instead of lowering themselves to meet the rest of society. Harrison’s characteristics and actions work together to show how he represents the more educated and stronger part of society.
In “Harrison Bergeron” Vonnegut does an excellent job at explaining how this society affects each group of individuals by describing each group by the personalities and actions of the characters Diana, George, Hazel, and Harrison. All of these characters work together to show the overall effect that this future society causes the american
Show More

Related Documents: A Community In Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron

Fahrenheit 451 Vs Harrison Bergeron Essay

dystopia is a futuristic society or community that is undesirable or frightening. Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron” and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 are two hopeless societies that both are based on having equal people, while the big difference is that “Harrison Bergeron” disables many things to equalize the people while Ray Bradbury burns books without forcing handicaps onto the people, which makes “Harrison Bergeron” a more hopeless environment. “Harrison Bergeron” is a story that sets handicaps…

Words 630 - Pages 3

Handicap Devices In Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron

Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron” opens with the current year and a brief explanation of the way things were: “Everybody was finally equal…Nobody was smarter than anybody else” (Vonnegut). This equality was made possible because of the 211th-213th Amendments to the Constitution as well as the agents of the United States Handicapper General. Switching a government and an entire society to become totalitarian is a very large task and must have had some resistance, especially since nearly everyone…

Words 1079 - Pages 5

Inequality Essay

character George Bergeron is forced to stay equal by the government’s laws of equality while his wife, Hazel Bergeron, is of only average intelligence, and consequently not given a handicap. Their son, however, has broken the laws of equality and is fugitive of the United States Handicapper General. The conflict between the United States Handicapper General and the Bergeron family helps to establish and develop the theme of a false perception of equality. George and Hazel Bergeron help to establish…

Words 2237 - Pages 9

Nineteen Eighty-four and Harrison Bergeron Essay

out , and was followed by the Cold War of 1947 that lasted up until 1991. The historic wars of these times influenced literature and the writers of the time, as they shaped their novels and books around these events. Writers such as George Orwell and Kurt Vonnegut created novels of dystopian societies to alert nations that communism was not as great as it sounded. British writer George Orwell wrote the novel 1984 published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. in 1949. 1984 is a political novel written…

Words 2595 - Pages 11