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Similarities Between Harrison Bergeron And 1984

Decent Essays

Dystopian novels, defined as a novel genre centered around corrupted government control, usually have similar patterns in their main plots. 1984 by George Orwell is about a government known as “The Party”. which controls every aspect of everyone’s lives, Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. is about a man who rises above the government’s control, which is in pace to make everyone totally equal, and Idiocracy, directed by Mike Judge, is about a man with average intelligence, who travels 500 years into the future to discover that he is the smartest man in the world. The one thing that all of these dystopian novels have in common is that the plot centers on the corruption of the control regarding the elites of the societies portrayed in the …show more content…

For instance, in 1984, there are daily social gatherings that the Party requires all civilians to attend, called “Two Minutes Hate”, where people cheer on against the Party’s war enemies with “processions, meetings, [and] military parades” (Orwell 122), despite the fact that these gatherings are against the best interest of the people. In Harrison Bergeron, George and Hazel watch as their son dies on television, and when George notices Hazel why she’s crying, she says she forgets and says, “Something real sad on television” (Vonnegut 5), because she is so low in intelligence that she forgot a pivotal moment of her life within a matter of seconds, due to the government’s control. In Idiocracy, all people are following a bandwagon of obvious stupidity, when they all agree with each other that Brawndo, an energy drink in the society of Idiocracy, is the best thing for their plants. When none of the plants grow, the government simply says that it’s due to a bad season, and the people believe it. The governments of these ignorant societies usually take advantage of the ignorance to impose oppressive laws to the people with propaganda and other mind controlling …show more content…

These brainwashing techniques vary between propaganda, technology, and forceful bandwagon campaigns. For example, in 1984, posters cover the wall saying “WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH”, (Orwell 7) which are meant to harass the civilians to drill in their minds what the government believes is right, even if it is against the civilian’s beliefs. The government in Harrison Bergeron places handicaps on citizens who have above average advantages over other citizens in order to make everyone average, and to ensure that nobody is any better than anyone else. For instance, George’s intelligence is slightly above others, so he has a “little mental handicap radio in his ear” (Vonnegut 1). For a final example, in Idiocracy, the energy drink company Brawndo bought out the United States FDA, FCC, and USDA in order to be able to completely control government sanctioned nutrition and consumption regulations in order to force everyone in society to indulge in their drinks. However, through all this ignorance, the protagonist of these dystopian novels all seem to share a similar pattern of not letting themselves be a part of the aforementioned common

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