Similarities Between Harrison Bergeron And Fahrenheit 451

“Harrison Bergeron, “a short story by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., takes place in a totalitarian society where everyone is equal through handicaps forced on them by the government. Harrison, the main character, attempts to save the broken society, but ultimately fails to change anything. Vonnegut uses Harrison as a Christ figure in his novel ironically, to make a statement about our own society today and how we are blind to many political things happening around us. These ideas can be explored through analyzing Thomas Foster’s novel How to Read Literature like a Professor.

Imagine a world in which one is taught how and what to think. In this world no one is given the opportunity to form their own opinions. Books are illegal because they might generate ideas other than those which are taught. Knowledge is what allows a person to understand right from wrong, but if it is ingrained in a person to follow a set of rules without having an understanding for them, it’s most likely that the person will rebel. That is what occurs in Fahrenheit 451. Books are banned and, if found, are burned along with the house they are located in. This rule instilled fear and curiosity in the hearts of certain people within their society. Fear of getting their house burned and curiosity about the contents of these books people are sacrificing their houses and even some lives for. The answer is simple: knowledge. In Fahrenheit 451, the power and value of ideas allows one to see the world’s beauty clearly through their own eyes, comprehend and cognize the rules, and instigate conflict.

The main similarity between the dystopian novel Brave New World and the short story “Harrison Bergeron”, is the type of government present. Both are attempting to control the individual lives of its people in order to maintain their “ideal” society. In Brave New World, the government uses constant feelings of pleasure in order to keep its people happy in their designated roles. In contrast, in “Harrison Bergeron” the government uses a series of handicaps to create complete and total equality in its citizens. Both are horrible.

Although books may seem important to educate people about what kind of society they are living in, the government in Fahrenheit 451 controls the information of what the public views by destroying books in order to maintain their power.

Fahrenheit 451 relates to Plato’s "Allegory of the Cave" in the sense that there was a false truth of the world. The people in the story didn't know the "real world". For example, in Fahrenheit 451, people believed that firemen always set fire to homes, not put them out. In "Allegory of the Cave" the prisoners are "forced to keep their head immobile", much like the people in Fahrenheit 451 are forced to burn all books. These two things are similar because they both hide the truth.

How would the world survive if the government controlled us? In 1984 and Harrison Bergeron, the government gained control over its citizens by using a telescreen or television and if they have any thoughts, it would be interrupted. In the book by George Orwell and in the short story by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., they both wanted to show how the government controlled the citizens in a dystopian society. To gain control, the government uses total equality in Harrison Bergeron and in 1984, the government uses totalitarianism.

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.

There are a lot of things similar and different in Fahrenheit 451 and The 5th Wave. One of the things similar is that the people do not know what was happening in other places of the world. They are only concerned about their own lives. One thing that is different is that The 5th Wave is taking place in a post-apocalypse world while Fahrenheit 451 is taking place in a world in the future where technology is very advanced. Another thing that is similar is that the government did not tell the people what was going on. Something that is different about this is that the people in Fahrenheit 451 did not care that the government was not telling them anything. In the 5th Wave, the people actually cared. Another thing that is different is the enemy. In The 5th Wave, the enemy is the aliens or the Others. In Fahrenheit 451, the enemy is the government because they view humans as a weapon. In Fahrenheit 451, it says “One drop of rain. Clarisse. Another drop. Mildred. A third. The uncle. A fourth. The fire tonight. One, Clarisse. Two, Mildred. Three, uncle. Four, fire. One, Mildred, two, Clarisse. One, two, three, four, five, Clarisse, Mildred, uncle, fire, sleeping tablets, men, disposable tissues, coattails, blow, wad, flush, Clarisse, Mildred, uncle, fire, tablets, tissues, blow, wad, flush. One, two, three, one, two, three! Rain. The storm. The uncle laughing. Thunder falling downstairs. The whole world pouring down. The fire gushing up in the volcano.All rushing down around the

Society. Neither good or bad. There are and always will be secrets that are hidden from us, whether it is for our own good or not. In the two texts, the two main characters face the struggle of finding out what society is keeping hidden from the world. In Fahrenheit 451, Montag faces the struggle of finding out who he really is and figures out he wants to be able to do what he wants. In the short story called Harrison Bergeron, Harrison wants to make everyone realize that the world they live in isn't perfect and fair. But I'm both texts, the main characters had discovered a secret and had to figure out a way to share it with everyone.

Because things are shortened we don't learn everything we need because important elements were taken out of the stories that were told. The only differences in the two of our societies are that our people have the ability to be tenacious learners because we have a school where we actually learn, but we just don't apply what we know because we are too lazy, but Fahrenheit 451 people actually can't learn because they don't have a chance to get to learn due to people taking away their resources.

The point of view in “Harrison Bergeron” is third person with limited insight. The focal character is George Bergeron, the titular character’s father. The story is written to show two settings: the living room of George and Hazel Bergeron, and the scene they are watching on their television. This point of view helps to develop the theme by showing what we assume to be an average couple in a futuristic setting, and by establishing a societal norm for the dystopian setting. The mundane point of view contrasts nicely with the very outrageous personality of Harrison Bergeron and his theatrical antics. This point of view also gives the reader a relatively objective look into the conflict between Harrison and the United States Handicapper General. The use of George as the focal character gives the reader insight into the mind of a man who wears a mental and a physical handicap. This allows the reader to see into George’s thoughts and how they process with the mental handicap in place, “every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking advantage of their

The book Fahrenheit 451 and Equilibrium have many similarities and differences, first of all they are both take place in a dystopian future/society. Whats a dystopian society, you may ask? Well a dystopia usually will have a totalitarian government, a society that is suppressed that isn’t able to freely think or show emotion. Dystopias are usually thought to be a perfect society with little to no flaws in it. There are many characteristics that Equilibrium and 451 have of a dystopia.

Albert Einstein once said, “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” What he is trying to point out to everyone is that if someone is really good at math, it doesn’t mean that he/she has a good mindset, thinking wise. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and The Giver by Lois Lowry are both books that have a similar idea of how a society is supposed to be run, but with different plots. In both books, the government took away the citizen’s power to think for themselves. Similarly, they both have main characters that release later on how messed up and nonperfect their community is.

To first discover what makes these novels similar, they must first be analyzed to see their plot. Fahrenheit 451 is the story of a fireman named Guy Montag. Montag is no ordinary civilian, he is a fireman, the law enforcement that burns down house and arrests people if they have been proven to be hiding books. The story goes that Montag has a wife who has very little purpose in life. Her only desire is to be with her “family”, the actors on television who make programs where the viewer feels they are involved in the show. Eventually, Montag meets a young girl named Clarisse who talks with him when they walk together on the sidewalk, says to him “You’re not like the others” (Page 21), and who has been deemed by society as “peculiar” as she expresses herself in many artful ways. Montag talks with Clarisse until, one day, Clarisse is hit by a car,

The main theme expressed in these novels is mass censorship on society. The authority figures shape society to believe what they want society to believe. In 1984, a group called “the party” exterminates and modifies any literature or documentations of history to get society to think what the party wants them to think. The party uses monitoring screens in homes and “thoughtpolice” to monitor citizens actions and thoughts. In Fahrenheit 451, the authority does not modify any literature or documentation. The authority chooses to exterminate any form of literature and documentation. Therefore, the society has no knowledge about history and what goes on in the world. This censors the thoughts of society and does not allow citizens to speak freely and express their thoughts about anything.