Harrison Bergeron Essay On Equality

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Initially, the thought of equality sounds appealing to most anyone. The feeling of inferiority drives individuals to compete, to fight for the chance to be the best. Those who are unable to keep up will complain that life is unfair, that they weren’t given the same chances as others, and they are completely right. While there is a certain degree to which everyone should have equality, there should be an understanding that not all people should be identical in abilities. In Kurt Vonnegut’s futuristic and satirical short story, “Harrison Bergeron,” everyone is equal. Those who are smarter, stronger, and more beautiful than others are handicapped so that they are the equivalent of the most unintelligent, weakest, and most unattractive person in existence. The story follows a couple named George and Hazel Bergeron, and the reader can conclude from the amount of handicaps described, George is a very bright and brawny individual while Hazel is on the lower end of the spectrum. While watching …show more content…
While there is still competition, we reward children with “participation” ribbons and applaud them for “trying their best.” In “Harrison Bergeron,” Hazel even says herself that an announcer that could not pronounce worlds correctly “should get a nice raise for trying so hard.” While we don’t physically handicap those with higher abilities, children who think and work faster can be held back to the standards of the slower children in school. I remember a time in elementary school where the class was given a worksheet to complete and I, being naturally faster than most of my classmates, finished the front side before everyone else. I turned the paper over and started to work on the remaining problems but was stopped by the teacher who scolded me for moving on when we had to wait for everyone to finish the first portion. In her attempts to make everyone equal, I was forced to slow down, essentially handicapping
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