How Does Kurt Vonnegut Use Allusions In Harrison Bergeron

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. wrote about a dystopian fiction world in his 1961 short story 'Harrison Bergeron. The story speaks of an egalitarian world where equality is based on attributes like beauty, strength and intelligence rather than the equality on human rights. 'Harrison Bergeron ' is set in America in 2081 because of Amendments 211, 212 and 213 added to the Constitution in order to make sure that everyone is equal in every way. This equality is accomplished due to the diligent efforts of Diana Moon Glamper, the United States Handicapper General. She is the government official who creates handicaps that will bring the stronger or smarter members of society down to the same level as the slower members. In the opening scene fourteen-year old Harrison Bergeron is taken away from his

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

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

Harrison Bergeron is a valuable story that has underlying themes, which are very relevant in our current society. The theme of equality can be seen throughout the book, and it is the principle that is enshrined in America’s constitution now, whereby they claim that all men are equal. Kurt Vonnegut demonstrates the issue of equality in a Utopian society. Vonnegut in his story, cautions Americans on the dangers of creating a truly equalitarian society, whereby citizens go to an extent of sacrificing their freedom, and individuality to the state, to create a place where all people are equal. Vonnegut creates a society whereby, all people are made equal. The beautiful are forced to wear hideous masks to disfigure their beauty, those considered intelligent are to wear radio calls, and ear splitting noises that are supposed to impede their thinking, and the strong are forced to wear weights around their necks throughout the day. The author uses masks, and the weights as symbols to symbolize

Vonnegut successfully makes point, that trying to make a perfect world, where all things are equal, is impossible and will cause trouble. In the 1960’s equal rights were a big goal to achieve. People aiming towards equal rights for blacks, women, and even homosexuals. Vonnegut uses

In the literary piece “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut, we enter a futuristic dystopian society in which all citizens have been forced into equality by a government that rules with corrupt omnipotence. From the very beginning of his hauntingly prophetic tale, Vonnegut lures us in by revealing what our society has devolved into at the hands of the wrong system in power. In the name of equality, the attractive are mutilated, the strong are weakened, and the intelligent are handicapped. “The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal” (¶1) Vonnegut states in his captivating opening line. Through this dismal tale, Vonnegut reveals that forced and total equality is nothing more than a perilous fallacy. He suggests that complete equality is not as ideal as one might think; in fact, it is more dangerous than we could have ever conceived.

The society in “Harrison Bergeron” is similar to the society in Anthem in the sense that they both look down on people that are superior to others. “Harrison Bergeron” presents the United States in the year 2081, where everybody is equal under the rule of the United States Handicapper General, Diana Moon Glampers. In this futuristic version of the United States, people are given handicaps when they are above average either mentally or physically, resulting in a significant drop of the average intelligence level of their community as compared to today’s standards. Harrison Bergeron, a smart, handsome, and athletic fourteen year old boy that lives in this society, is required to wear headphones that made loud sounds, glasses with thick wavy lenses, and three hundred pounds of scrap metal to limit his abilities. But even with all of these hindrances, he is still considered too gifted and therefore dangerous to society. In this short story, Vonnegut creates the idea that trying to make everyone equal is not something that we should strive for as it can lead to major

The 1961 short story by Kurt Vonnegut, “Harrison Bergeron,” details a dystopian future in which the mediocre and average are lionized, and the exceptional in society are marginalized and treated as though they are handicapped and/or criminal. The plot of “Harrison Bergeron” revolves around the plight of its title character, an adolescent boy who is 7’1” tall, extremely good looking, and has a genius-level I.Q., to boot. In the story, Harrison has been placed in jail in order to protect society from his exceptionality. In the society of 2081 America that Vonnegut depicts, the United States government has installed a fascist government that punishes people for falling above the norm in any instance. As the story progresses, the reader learns that Harrison’s mother is actually of below average intelligence, and this has rendered her into an “ideal citizen.” Harrison’s father, on the other hand, possesses above average intelligence and is subject to constant monitoring by the government, so as to ensure that he does not use his superior abilities to act outside of the norm, in any way. Ultimately, “Harrison Bergeron” is a Marxist critique of the late capitalist society of the twentieth century United States, which celebrates the “average” and the “mediocre,” while demonizing innovation.

The subject of “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut is equality. The theme of this short story is that society should make an effort to value individuality and fairness, in which everyone receives what they need to prosper, instead of universal equality. The forms used to elevate this subject and theme are point of view, syntax, characterization, irony, and humor.

Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron”, is a short story that explores the ideas of humanity in the future. This author is blatantly proving how the saying “everyone is equal” is not entirely true. In this story, the government that imposes totalitarianism has went through the actions of processing equality to the citizens of the United States and through the agents involved with the United States Handicapper General. This showed how this government was able to take the idea of equality and end up stripping the citizens of processing individual thoughts, their creativity and intellect, and basically brainwashed society to believe nothing happening should be considered incorrect behavior Incidentally, Harrison Bergeron is not simply an interesting short story, but was intended for historical satire purposes.

American actress Emma Stone once said, “What sets you apart can sometimes feel like a burden and it’s not. And a lot of the time, it’s what makes you great.”. This quote could represent the message conveyed in Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s dystopian story “Harrison Bergeron”. In his piece, he creates the setting of the world in the year 2081, where everyone has become equal and nobody is different. Whether it be strengths, talents, disabilities, or intelligence, everyone has become identical to one another, except for the main character Harrison Bergeron, who was arrested and taken away by the government at the age of fourteen for being a nonconformist.

While reading "Harrison Bergeron," I received a feeling that total equality is an idea not worth aiming for. In the story, smart, beautiful, talented, and strong people must be tortured to be equal with everyone else. Even when George and Hazel's son dies, Harrison Bergeron, his mother, who had short memory loss, could not remember the tragic incident right after she saw what had happened on-screen. Equality is more or less achieved, but at the cost of freedom and individuality of the people. The setting of the story is not my ideal place that I had thought of. Instead, I felt a very painful and sad feeling from this story. Also, this narrative made me rethink about the future and how the time ahead could be more brutal and more grating.

This story portrays the future with pure equality where everybody is the same. This story is about the parents of a kid named Harrison Bergeron and what happens at the end of his life. Harrison had just escaped prison, and his parents are seeing the news report. Then his parents talk about cheating the system, but his father says that they can’t do that. They decide to watch the music concert and dance on the television. At a point during the concert Harrison Bergeron busts in and says that he is the new ruler of the world. Harrison tears the shackles off himself and a woman. Harrison and the woman then dance and start to float into the sky. Then the Handicapper General bursts in, kills Harrison and the woman, and then tells the band to get their devices back on or they will die. The story concludes with the father hearing a gunshot of a killed musician, and the wife forgetting what was on the television. Showing that they will never remember that there son is dead (Vonnegut 193-197). This story is really about how pure equality is a very bad decision. The fact that Harrison Bergeron could just tear off all of his shackles shows you can’t hold somebody down. It takes a world of equality and shows how it can’t work. It shows you can’t force everybody to do what you want, because eventually enough people

In “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., the danger of too much equality is pointed out numerous times throughout the book. Being equal as far as people having to follow the same laws and restrictions is all right, but you can push equality too far. If you make everyone think, look, sound, and act alike, as they did in “Harrison Bergeron”, then it can cause some complications. All people are different and in order to have a well managed community, then people’s diversity need to be expressed.

In the story “Harrison Bergeron,” by Kurt Vonnegut, the setting is the year 2081 and the government is controlling society. The government wants everyone to feel equal and to do so, they establish the United States Handicapper General. They feel no one should be smarter than another, more better looking than another, and no stronger or quicker than another. The government took equality to an extreme.