Essay about Harrison Bergeron

Submitted By laurenrachelle33
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Harrison Bergeron “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is an illustration of the effects of making people completely equal and complete government control. Equality is something that everyone is always hoping for but when this idea is taken too far is when trouble can be found. All people should be equal in certain ways but the special gifts and talents that everyone has should not be altered. If everyone is equal with nothing special to offer to society then people will become very boring and different emotional effects will take place.
The story “Harrison Bergeron” took place in 2081 where everyone was equal. No one was allowed to be better at something than the next person. So to solve this, government put certain handicaps on people to ensure that one person could not excel in something that others can’t. This is taking equality of people too far and making it very difficult to allow people to live their own life. In the story one of the handicaps that were used, was stopping the thought process of smarter people. Radios were placed in intelligent people’s ear and were required by law to wear these. About every twenty seconds a transmitter would send out an ear hurting sound to ruin the thought process of that person. This made it impossible for any person with a good brain to think about new things or develop great inventions. This is all caused by trying to create everyone equal and not letting people excel in what they do best. When the smart people in this world are no longer allowed to think then that leaves this place with nothing but an average Joe walking around everywhere.
Another example of how the story made everyone equal is by not allowing beautiful women and handsome men to show their face. The government forced the people that were better looking to cover their face with a mask and do not show their face. Theses mask were not just a little thing that covered your face but the story describes them as very ugly and it made it seem as if the better looking a person was, the uglier the mask was. This handicap that was forced on people made it very difficult for a person to express themselves by the way they look. In today society it seems that what you wear and how you look is very important to how people see you. People that might be walking around in a suit and tie with a nice haircut and freshly shaved would be looked at with more respect or more trust than one
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