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Similarities Between Harrison Bergeron And The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas

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The perspectives introduced by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s “Harrison Bergeron” and Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” consist of extreme conditions that depict the future of the world. Vonnegut Jr. and Le Guin’s stories both involve the futuristic, utopian societies that later mutate into the complete opposite of what originally started as the idealistic community. “Harrison Bergeron” and “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” also include the corruption and the negative change that anger the authorities due to a specific individual that lives within the community. Because the two stories both have excessively significant events that occur, symbols of dystopian societies, drugs and handicap weights, and flawed human beings cause …show more content…

To maintain the balance between individuals in the utopia of Vonnegut Jr.’s “Harrison Bergeron,” citizens who have the ability to think beyond the average level are forced to wear handicap radios in their ears that “…would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains” (Vonnegut Jr. 226-227). By keeping a government device in the ear, an individual’s thoughts are abruptly stopped and forgotten as sharp, painful noises are blasted through the earpiece into the individual’s brain. Additionally, all citizens are required to carry large weights as a form of egalitarianism. Compared to “Harrison Bergeron,” “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” also brings a significant symbol that represents the short-term memory that everyone must have in order to be equal. All citizens in Omelas take a drug called “drooz” that causes them to feel elated and carefree. In the city of Omelas, every citizen depends on “drooz” since the drug “…brings a great lightness and brilliance to the mind and limbs, and then after some hours a dreamy languor, and wonderful visions at last of the very arcana and inmost secrets of the Universe…” (Le Guin

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