The Importance Of Equality In Harrison Bergeron

If you are born with a gift in that society, you are limited to your full capability, so you will be like everyone else. However, in today’s society, being more intelligent and having a gift is praised and is rewarded. In the text it said, “ George while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap in his ear.” This proves that George, while being above average, is punished and his gift is hidden so he will not be above anyone else in this “equal” society. It can also show that being tall or more visually appealing will be punished so you are equivalent to everyone else and that striving for total equality is not as beneficial as it might

It is about Harrison, he has escaped from prison. As they were warning the people Harrison burst through the room, while also tearing off the door. Back at home George could barely comprehend what was going on on his screen due to “the sound of an automobile collision in his head.” Soon after his entry Harrison picked his empress, ripping off all her handicaps and his own to reveal both of their hidden beauty. Harrison and his empress danced to the music played by the orchestra that was initially forced by Harrison. On the screen, George could tell that the two were in love as they kissed and gracefully danced until “Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, came into the studio with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun. She fired twice, and the Emperor and his Empress were dead before they hit the floor.” Before George and Hazel Bergeron could react to their son’s death, George’s ear handicap went off in his head causing him to forget and Hazel could only think of things in short bursts. So by the time a tear rolled down her cheek she had already forgotten why she had been

Throughout “I AM a cripple”, Mairs conveys allusions on her disability and how she feels about her current quality of life. In the start of the essay, Mairs discusses labels society uses to elaborate on people with limitations. She appreciates some but loathes others, such as the term handicapped. As she states in the text, “my god is not a Handicapper General, in order to equalize chances in the great race of life” (Mairs). Handicapper General is a character from “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Mairs uses Handicapper General as a reference due to the character, giving out handicaps to everyone: masked women for beauty, and others being chained for being ‘too strong’. Referring to Handicapper General, Mairs indicates no one is to blame for her disability. Mairs’s

Do you think our society is truly equal? In the short story of “Harrison Bergeron”, the 211th, 212th, and 213th amendments make everyone “equal”. These amendments make nobody faster, stronger, smarter, or as good looking as anyone else. I believe, however, that everyone in that story truly wasn’t equal. I know this because only the gifted of “Harrison Bergeron” had to wear handicaps, the handicapped were treated differently, and only on the outside, were they truly equal.

The last handicap Vonnegut mentions proves to be humorous by hyperbole. The government uses weights to oppose above average athletics. The handicap can range from any size, shape or weight. For example, George wears “forty-seven pounds of birdshot in a canvas bag, which was padlocked around [his] neck,” (Vonnegut 159). The more physically fit a person is, the more handicaps

because “He is a genius and an athlete . . . .” Since Harrison is an athlete and a genius, then he is handicapped the most just because his is different.

First of all, people with above average intelligence must wear a mental handicap radio by law. For instance, George's intelligence is way above normal, so he has a handicap radio in his ear that will make alarming noises every so often to keep him from thinking deeply. This proves that there is no equality because people like George are forced into giving up their ability to think so that the society remains “equal”. Not to mention, everyone in “Harrison Bergeron” could not work hard and strive for excellence because they are all supposed to be mediocre. I know this because in the text it states “... since the announcer, like all announcers had a serious speech impediment… the announcer tried to say, ‘Ladies and Gentleman’. He finally gave up, handed the bulletin to a ballerina to read.” The fact that they gave the jobs of announcer to a person with a

In a society like one in Harrison Bergeron, people are obligated to wear handicapping devices to make sure that everybody was equal in all areas of everyday life, but these handicaps clearly were not successful in creating equality. To add on, these devices were made to allow everyone to have the same amount of skill as others, therefore ruling out the problem of jealousy and judgement. If anything, I feel like these handicapping devices had only made the problem of lack of equality worse than it was before.

The forced equality in Harrison Bergeron is wrong. We are taught to use what we are blessed with. Everyone with some sort of gift is handicapped, to stop them from being better than anyone else. Harrison’s dad is blessed with intelligence, and he is forced to wear a headset to keep him from using his intelligence. The government don’t want him to overcome others that are not as smart as him. The handicaps are holding back the potential that he is given. “He flung away his rubber-ball nose, revealed a man that would have awed Thor, the god of thunder,” (198). Harrison Bergeron must wear large glasses, heavy weights, and an earpiece because he is strong, smart, and he has good eyesight. The gifts he was given

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

According to the fact that everyone is different in many ways, it isn't possible for everyone to be equal. According to the story "Harrison Bergeron" all humans can never truly be equal. We see in the beginning of the story the reader learns that the gifted are handicapped, but the ability to reason hasn’t been taken away. Hazel tells George that she thinks he looks tired. She says, “All of a sudden

Finally, people in the story, Harrison Bergeron, does not have equal rights. For instance,  Diana Moon Glampers punishes the people who doesn’t follow the law, even though Diana is a citizen of United States. This back ups my point by how if everyone was truly equal, they would have equal rights, that means Diana would not be in charge of everyone and violate other people’s rights. People may argue with me by saying Diana is suppose to make sure that no one breaks the law, I say that it would help support my claim by how it means that everybody isn’t really equal. This clarifies that everybody is not really equal, even if there is there is a law that says everyone is equal. Thus meaning, that the law doesn’t really indicate everyone is really equal by how the government needs to force a handicap on people that are above average to balance everything out.

Some may argue while equality is still a hinderance; it still is universally equal, instead of being unequal as the theme displays “equality” to be. They may argue this because of the supposed success of the handicaps, because they inhibit thought, strength, or agility, making sure nobody is superior to anybody else. This is shown by Hazel and George within the text. Hazel is extremely dull, and George is exceptionally smart, but they are both equal, thanks to handicaps. However, this is not always the case, as shown with Harrison and his would-be bride. Harrison’s handicaps are extremely heavy, to ensure that he is equal to everyone else. But he isn’t, being significantly stronger and smarter than everybody else, even with his handicaps. This displays the hindrance that is equality to be unequal.

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.

In the 1930`s people who handicapped would be considered metal and would be placed in a mental hospital and would not have the right to do anything. In todays society people who are handicapped are treated with respect and are not thrown into mental hospitals. You cannot judge a person based on something like that