Harrison Bergeron Analysis

In the year 2081, everyone was forced to be equal. If you were beautiful, you wore masks or ugly accessories to hide your beauty. If you had independent thoughts against the way things were or anything against the government you were punished by having a terrible sound go through your brain. If you were strong or had the capability to overpower someone it was the law to wear a handicap bag filled with a certain amount of weight on you at all times.

“Harrison Bergeron”, written in 1961, is set in the year 2081. It tells the story of a future America where human equality is forced through the use of rudimentary devices that handicap above average people. The story’s baseline for average is a fairly low one, and the collective dumbing down has produced a society with almost no attention span and very little independent thought.

In Harrison’s world, everyone is said to be equal. If someone is better at something than another, the better person will receive a handicap to make him or her worse. One example is a smarter than average person would be given an earpiece transmitter as their handicap. George Bergeron is forced to wear one of these transmitters. “Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains” (page 99). In this society, it is illegal to remove a handicap, because doing so would give you an unfair advantage. After breaking out of captivity, Harrison Bergeron made the mistake of barging into a television station, removing his handicaps, and proclaiming ‘“I am the Emperor!”’ (page 104). He then selected a woman to be his “Empress.” “Harrison plucked the mental handicap from her ear, snapped off her physical handicaps with marvelous delicacy. Last of all he removed her mask” (page 104). Harrison and his Empress began to dance and kiss, but the rebellion came to a quick end when “Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, came into the studio with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun. She fired twice, and the Emperor and the Empress were dead before they hit the floor” (page 105). Because of Harrison’s flaw of impulsivity, he made quick, sudden and bad decisions which led his the untimely death and the death of his unfortunate

In the story the author form of equality will be questioned by the people many times and will eventually fail. Harrison is used in the story to show that people will work nonstop against the handicaps until the system is taken away. “Harrison tore the straps off his handicap harness like wet tissue paper, tore straps guaranteed to support fire thousand pounds,” (198). There is no competition due to the handicaps that prevent anyone from being equal. There cannot be no improvement anywhere without competition. All critical thinking will end, and all progress that requires thought will be stopped. The author form of equality will never work in any way, because it causes humans to lose confidence and hope and stops all creativity.

In the short story, Harrison is used to showing what happens when you aren’t like the others in other words “average”. Harrison is forced to wear weights, glasses, earphones, rubber nose, and teeth caps that try to handicap him so that he is “average”. “Instead of a little ear radio for a mental handicap, he wore a

And it was easy to see that she was the strongest and most graceful of all the dancers, for her handicap bags were as big as those worn by two-hundred pound men (Vonnegut, Paragraph 2). Also, the government became corrupt knowing that they can control the Americans by using these laws. They took advantage of that to attempt to make a form of Utopia, where everyone was the same. The influence from the absolute power also made the government want to control or change anything that goes against their wishes. “Some things about living still weren't quite right, though.

Others might say that people like Harrison Bergeron are also treated like him, I say that some people that are above average is treated differently. I say this by how George, in the story, was wearing a handicap too but he was not considered a criminal and disrespected by other citizens. Therefore, everyone in the story was not equal to each other, by how they were treated differently.

Imagine a world where an oppressive government captures what many call diversity. Where ugly is known as beauty and intelligence is insignificant. “They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else.” (Vonnegut) This is the future that Harrison experiences, in the short story “Harrison Bergeron,” by Kurt Vonnegut. It is the year 2081 and the government handicaps every citizen with make up or weights to create equality. Where there are over than 200 amendments and the government has full control of all citizens, this is indeed against what America had been

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.

demonstrates how good intentions of the government are slowly used to manipulate people in society. One way the idea of manipulation is shown in the story is when the Handicapper General (H-G) Men takes away perceived people to be better than anyone else, to prison for a potential revolution and give little care for it by the handicaps put on them. As Vonnegut tells us, “ And it was in that clammy month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron's fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away. It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn't think about it very hard.”(Vonnegut Jr. 1). In the extract, the author explained that the government would take action to potentially avert danger in any way; but presents the oppressive government exerting their power to kidnap Harrison Bergeron because he was more talented than other people. Harrison’s parents, George and Hazel did not remember his son taken from because they were manipulated and not able to think long and hard about what happened to restrict the right of their choices. The other way is shown in the story, are the handicaps themselves and the way government uses it to their advantage. As the narrator introduces George, “ And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to bear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send

“Harrison Bergeron”by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., is a story about a teen that speaks out about the equal but unfair government in a dystopian future. “Harrison Bergeron” encapsulates the importance of celebrating each other’s differences and how equality ruins that. The setting of “Harrison Bergeron” is always in the distant future in a bleak place where mediocrity is admired. Because of the feeling of dullness in the setting, it gives a platform for the government to equalize everyone.The movie’s setting is very 1950s influenced, while the short-story is timelessly bleak.

Vonnegut sets his story in 2081, where everyone is equal. No one is smarter, more talented, stronger, or better looking. The government in his story controlled everyone and how they acted and thought with machines. Those who were smarter had a mental handicap radio’s in their ear that made a noise every so often throwing them off the train of thought. The stronger ones had to carry around weight at all times, to make them equal to the weak. Those who were beautiful had to wear mask, or were made to look less beautiful. All competition was gone. However, Vonnegut shows that trying to control everyone, so all are equal is impossible, and can lead to disastrous things. In the story, Harrison Bergeron was arrested for suspicion of overthrowing the government. He escaped jail and on the TV episode of the ballerinas, people watched him take over. He allowed himself and others to take off the equipment controlling them and everyone became an individual again. Until, the leader came in and killed Harrison and the beautiful ballerina as they were dancing. Things became equal again, but not perfect.

Kurt Vonnegut’s unique story “Harrison Bergeron,” displays a theme which is a warning about the dangers of equality, which is equality is a hindrance to an individual’s success and society’s success, but this hindrance is ironically, unequal. In the story, Harrison and his bride are arrested for their unwillingness and inability to stay within the bounds of equality enforced by the Handicapper General. Equality hinders the success of an individual like the weights hinder the beauty and grace of the ballerinas in the story. Equality doesn’t promote everyone to be equally better, but to be unequally worse. Handicaps are no use in ensuring equality, because one’s strengths will always shine through, such as Harrison’s strength and wit, or the

Point being if only some people had handicaps and some people did not society would not truly be equal because for everyone to be equal they would all have to have handicaps and have the same handicaps.

The government handicaps George’s mental abilities since they are above average, while Hazel’s mental abilities are average.