Comparing 'Harrison Bergeron And By The Waters Of Babylon'

Ray Bradbury’s “August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains” and Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron”, both portray visions of a dystopian future. In “August 2026”, everyone has been wiped out by a nuclear disaster, while in “Harrison Bergeron”, the US government has created a society where everyone is equal. Although these stories have very different characters and plots, the central themes and settings are very similar to each other and how they are perceived by the reader. In these stories, Bradbury and Vonnegut wrote around a central theme intended so that the reader can relate to it: what may become of us in the future. As such with many short stories portraying dystopian societies, they both depict bad events such as nuclear disasters and evil dictators.

Imagine a horrifying world where the government has finally made every individual equal in every aspect of their lives. In the short story, “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., this is a terrifying reality. In this society, the strong are required to wear weights so they can be equal to those that are weaker, the intelligent are required to wear ear pieces that disable their thought process, and beautiful are required to cover their face with hideous masks, thus rendering their mental, physical, and social attributes equal to everyone. With a government constantly pushing for equality among all citizens, Vonnegut reveals a dystopia that society is slowly working toward. Vonnegut uses foreshadowing to reveal the future of society, Vonnegut

People say that money cannot buy happiness, it can not but it can buy unhappiness and bombs. In“Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and in “By the Waters of Babylon” By Stephen Vincent Benét, the main characters struggle with life in the future. Both characters live in a world that is very flawed, the authors of both stories give warnings about the future, with their ideas of how the future will be they create a future that would not be fun to live and are quite unappealing. In “By the Waters of Babylon,” the world has been scarred by the savagery of a nuclear war. In “Harrison Bergeron,” society is absolutely equal and nobody is better than another, everyone has handicaps to make them uglier, less intelligent, and weaker

Picture a society, far in the future, where everyone, by government control, must be on the same level. Would this be Hell or a utopia? This is the subject of Kurt Vonnegut’s short story, “Harrison Bergeron”. In this society, the gifted, strong, and beautiful are required to wear multiple handicaps of earphones, heavy weights, and hideous masks. In turn, these constraints leave the world equal, or arguably devoid of, from brains to brawn to beauty. With the constant push for equality among all people, Vonnegut reveals a world that society is diligently working toward. “Harrison Bergeron” is written as a form of satire with heavy irony, to demonstrate the clear difference between equity and equality in society. “Harrison Bergeron” is

If you have ever read the stories “Harrison Bergeron” and Fahrenheit 451 I’m sure you would recognize the similarities and differences between the two. For example, one of the similarities between the books would be how the main characters from Fahrenheit 451, Guy Montag and Mildred Montag are very similar to the main characters Harrison and Hazel from “Harrison Bergeron.” The other example of similarity between the two stories would be how the government realized the desire for equality that people have and use that to keep society at below average intelligence levels. One difference that I found between the two stories was how different the restrictions were in each of the stories.

The air is rancid and smokey, causing a haze to form over the sun. The distant skyline is in rubble, as if an energetic toddler knocked them to the ground like building blocks. The city looked bland and grim without the bustle of people and the soft glow of the street lights. This is what the future holds, damned by society and its misuse. In “By the Waters of Babylon”, the story is set in a distant future near New York City. After a major disaster wiped out most of the civilization, a tribe started over from scratch. Jon, a priest in training, sets off on a journey east to investigate his dreams and to gain knowledge. In “Harrison Bergeron”, the story is set in a future where everyone must be equal, using handicaps to limit above average people and their abilities. George and Hazel Bergeron, the parents of Harrison, watch as he publicly defies the government and shows what it means to be free. In both, “By the Waters of Babylon” by Stephen Vincent Benet and “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., we see a twisted and dire future. The events that take place heed as warnings or lessons about the dangers of technology and how too much of one thing, such as equality or knowledge, can set society back.

Projections that have been made about how today’s society and culture will look in the coming years, decades, and centuries, all have yet to be seen in how valid they are. If you look in any sort of media: television, social media, or radio/music, you will see people giving their interpretations of what will become of our world down the road. Yet, few people look to see how our the current state of culture and society reflect the projections made by people in previous years, decades, and centuries. In looking at the visions of the future presented by both novelas, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, and The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster, each story presents aspects of society that prominently appear today. Written during the Industrial Revolution, a time where technology and human innovation was at one of its highest points in recent history, both stories explore the possible effects of the machinery that was becoming evermore present. Both authors present aspects such as omnipotent technology, decaying human independence, and destruction of real communication, to create the artistic statement that complacency is rising within the human race, and that complacency will eventually lead to the fall of mankind. In both stories, the authors speak against human complacency and deference to technology, warning that it will lead to the creation of weaker people and society that will ultimately destroy the human race, yet that complacency is present in today’s culture and due to the

In both Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and Vonnegut’s “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow”, the authors show major concerns about the future. Bradbury’s major concern is the misuse of technology that leads to the corruption of society while Vonnegut’s major concern is overpopulation and the lack of natural resources for the future. Both authors show concerns that can turn out to be real if people do not do anything about the environment and about technology.

Have you ever thought about what kind of technology we will have in the future? Or have you thought about how technology will affect us in the future? In the story “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut and the story “By the Waters of Babylon” by Stephen Vincent Benet both the futures with technology look pretty awful. In “Harrison Bergeron” anyone with special gifts or talents are forced to wear a handicap to make them like everyone else in society. In “By the Waters of Babylon” tells a story about how our technology is so advanced that if we went to war we would destroy everything we have and we would have to basically restart. In both books our technology in the future is way too strong and

In today’s world, equality is quite a hot topic being thrown about. With the help of Kurt Vonnegut and Chandler Tuttle with kind of have an idea of what really equality could look like. The question I think they are trying to pose is do we really want equality? Both stories are quite similar but have a few differences which affects the way the perceive different stories. The story is mainly about a time in the future where all people would be equal to both God and Law. Some people like Harrison, will dislike being made equal to others because they believe, they are being denied a chance to achieve their full potential.

Harrison Bergeron, a short story by Kurt Vonnegut, is not written for the light reader. This story of equality shows deeply of how horrid it would be to be born special, different, smarter, faster, stronger, etc, in a world where you are forced to be equal. Despite the usual connotation of the word equality, Kurt Vonnegut looks at the cost of making everyone be the same. He has shown through his words the torture you must endure in order to make you the same as everyone else, being a radio intending to scatter your thoughts, weights to weigh you down, or even a hideous, grotesque, mask used to hide your charming face. After you’ve lived with these handicaps a man, named Harrison Bergeron, trying to change how things are interrupts your show.

Fahrenheit 451 compares to the story The Veldt using imagery and Fahrenheit 451 compares to the story Harrison Bergeron by a common theme. In Fahrenheit 451, Guy Montag is a firefighter but instead of putting out fires, he catches books on fire due to books being illegal. Montag had books but never told his wife for the longest time. Once Montag showed his wife he had books, not long after she called the cops on him. Montag ran off and accidentally met up with the Granger group. Everyone in the city ended up dying and the Granger group lived due to them hiding outside of the city. In the story that compares to Fahrenheit 451, The Veldt, George and Lydia have a room called the nursery. The nursery is where the walls change scenes to how the kids feel and the parents can see the scenes that they are creating on the walls. The other story that relates to Fahrenheit 451 is Harrison Bergeron. In this story, Harrison has the most handicaps to keep him from being smart. The handicaps help him forget smart thoughts and keep him from being focused on one thing for too long. Harrison escaped prison and took all of his handicaps off. Not long after he did all of this, he was killed for taking off his handicaps.

Literature is always comparable and contrastable in the views of the reader. Stories can compared through different literary elements, such as the Marxist Theory, which is the class struggles, and through symbolism. Harrison Bergeron and The Interlopers are two stories that can be both compared and contrasted through these two literary elements. Therefore, Harrison Bergeron and The Interlopers can be compared and contrasted through Marxist Theory and symbolism, because both contain different aspects of the theory, and both stories depict symbols that affect the overall story differently.

Between the short story “Harrison Bergeron” and the film 2081 I preferred the story “Harrison Bergeron”. I favored the short story over the movie because the author left out small details about the world in which the story took place in, so as a reader you were able to fill in these details and almost create part of the story yourself. The movie already filled in these details, which for me took out the uniqueness in the story. I also liked the short story better because when reading you could reflect on the plot and predict what was going to happen further on in the story. The movie never allowed you to do this because it was constantly moving on to a different topic or idea.

Throughout this semester our literary material dealt with themes of technology, modernization, the imponderable bloom, human nature, and truth to name a few of the most overarching. Each text has woven an impression of the possible near future for humanity if the patterns we are creating continue at an exponential rate. Patterns such as consumerism, neglecting unpleasurable emotions, using drugs, and controlling the environment for our short term benefits will write an unsavory and inevitable future. Science Fiction often reflects on society by exaggerating their negative characteristics and advancements to seem far-out, but often it is ironic how close many aspects of the fiction are a direct reflection of the present condition. Even now, the possibilities of utopias and dystopias forming are not so out of reach. The ability of our culture to control an entire population with a self-satisfied culture of vices outfitted with technology is less and less science fiction as the years pass.