What Is The Theme Of Pure Equality Does More Harm Than Good To A Society

The short story, Anthem, by Ayn Rand, and "Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut, are both stories that strongly express equality, in different and similar ways. Both dystopian stories are about a boy who is trying to fight to become an individual. Though out both stories the author use different ways to how show how the protagonists tries to achieve their goal, and both stories end up differently.

This idea of forced equality can be seen once the narrator described “...appearance [as] Halloween and hardware. Nobody has ever borne heavier handicaps (Vonnegut 5). Depicted as a kind of oppression, Harrison rebels against a government that handicaps anyone that is deemed above

Kurt Vonnegut published “Harrison Bergeron” to express his thoughts of what a world with equality might look like. The setting of this takes place in front of a TV to emphasis how much is it looked to for answers. The government wants everyone the same and will go to any means necessary. In the constitution, “all men are created equal” can be found, and this short story explores the ideas of when that sentence is taken too literal. In “Harrison Bergeron,” Vonnegut paints his readers a picture illustrating the dangers of conforming three different individuals, Hazel, George, and Harrison, to the same level of expectation through the power of government control and television.

Mowery discusses the ongoing theme of forced equality in the story Harrison Bergeron. He explores the way

In “Harrison Bergeron” the citizens are considered equal. However the citizens are not truly equal. I disagree about everyone being truly equal in the story Harrison Bergeron, because some of them had to wear painful handicaps, and the non-handicapped people having an unfair advantage over the handicapped people.

Fourteen year old Harrison Bergeron is a passionate character that symbolizes equality in society during the year of 2081. Harrison rebels against the government in a way that shows how everyone in “Harrison Bergeron” was not absolutely equal. This community and its citizens has lost its rights after the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution. Everyone was not actually equal in the story since people could not use their own intelligence, express their true beauty, and display their strengths. The citizens were scared of the United States Handicapper General and they do not have the freedom to be themselves.

Equal mind set, equal beauty, equal sight, equal weight, equal everything creating a dystopian society. Everything is equal creating a lack of power or power where there should not be. In this story people are forced to stay in low power and not show their abilities. The Government takes away their rights to make it “equal”. This puts them above.

In this text equality is taken to an extreme that would be impossible to achieve in real life. The idea, at first, might sound good but in reality it would not be an ideal world to live in. Having equality in race and gender rather that other features like physical appearance and intelligence would be ideal but however this is not the case in this text. Having everyone with the same level of intelligence,appearance and strength would mean that there would be no improvement in the world.

There is indeed a manly and legitimate passion for equality which rouses in all men a desire to be strong and respected. This passion teds to elevate the little man to the rank of the great. But the human heart also nourishes a debased taste for equality, which leads the weak to want to drag the strong down to their level and which induces men to prefer equality in servitude to inequality in freedom. (Tocqueville 57) Equality is given at one’s starting point in life. In the story it is achieved throughout the characters’ lives. Everyone should have an equal starting point to be equal (Atkinson 10). “Harrison Bergeron” clearly exemplifies miscued examples of equality. There are many ways to go about becoming equal, but the story firmly shows

This story suggests that total equality amongst one another is not something worth striving for, suggesting that it implantation is dangerous and will have unintentional outcomes. This is true because in the story in order to achieve equality physically and mentally the citizens were treated inhumanly by the government. The beautiful were forced to hide their beauty under masks, the strong forced to wear hundred pound weights around their necks, and the intellectual suffered unbearable noises making it impossible for them to concentrate. Citizens dumb themselves down and hide their talents fearing government punishment. Equality is achieved in a sense but at the expense of freedom and personal achievement.

“Harrison Bergeron”by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., is a story about a teen that speaks out about the equal but unfair government in a dystopian future. “Harrison Bergeron” encapsulates the importance of celebrating each other’s differences and how equality ruins that. The setting of “Harrison Bergeron” is always in the distant future in a bleak place where mediocrity is admired. Because of the feeling of dullness in the setting, it gives a platform for the government to equalize everyone.The movie’s setting is very 1950s influenced, while the short-story is timelessly bleak.

The idea of equality is one that has been entrenched into the hearts and minds of the citizens of the United States since the days of the founding fathers. The thought that one person is better than another is an ideal that as a nation, the founding fathers strove to overcome. They believed that each person should have the identical rights and opportunities of every other person in our society. This sentiment becomes grossly perverted in Vonnegut’s short story “Harrison Bergeron”. In the tale, the American government has taken the idea of equality to an extreme that is not only inhumane, but in essence takes away our freedom and individuality, the very fabric of what we consider American.

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

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.

In this story, the goal of equality is to be free. It shows how he had to sin to get where he is today. He showed others what courage looked like. Sooner or later Equality finds ways to be free. “To be free, a man must be free of his brothers.”