A Marxist Critique Of Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron

To emphasize his message that both failures and benefits will result from one’s physical attributes Kurt Vonnegut Jr uses imagery throughout his short story “Harrison Bergeron. In the society that George and Hazel live in, there are

The story of “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is about a dystopian future of America that forces its citizens to be completely equal. The way that they enforce the rules is by forcing the strong to wear weights and the intelligent to be given mental handicaps. The style of writing Vonnegut uses to portray his story of equality is very subtle. Vonnegut uses diction, imagery, and syntax, to help the reader understand the characters, mood, and visuals.

Picture a society, far in the future, where everyone, by government control, must be on the same level. Would this be Hell or a utopia? This is the subject of Kurt Vonnegut’s short story, “Harrison Bergeron”. In this society, the gifted, strong, and beautiful are required to wear multiple handicaps of earphones, heavy weights, and hideous masks. In turn, these constraints leave the world equal, or arguably devoid of, from brains to brawn to beauty. With the constant push for equality among all people, Vonnegut reveals a world that society is diligently working toward. “Harrison Bergeron” is written as a form of satire with heavy irony, to demonstrate the clear difference between equity and equality in society. “Harrison Bergeron” is

Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle once said, “The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.” Kurt Vonnegut portrays Aristotle’s philosophy brilliantly in his short story “Harrison Bergeron.” The story depicts the American government in the future mandating physical handicaps in an attempt to make everyone equal. Vonnegut describes a world where no one is allowed to excel in the areas of intelligence, athletics, or beauty. Yet, the inequalities among the people shine even brighter. Vonnegut uses satire to explore the question of whether true equality can ever really exist.

In the story, “Harrison Bergeron” the author Kurt Vonnegut uses characterization and word choice to warn his readers of the potential drawbacks of a truly “equal” society. He does this when he shows how each type of person was accustomed to this form of government. As it states in the story, “Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn't think about anything except in short bursts.” (1) This helps emanate how because Hazel was already lacking in any advantage over any other person, she was dealt no setback and was the standing ground for the entire population. Vonnegut also uses characterization to warn his readers when he has a George almost literally given a disability for his intelligence, “

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

Harrison Bergeron is a valuable story that has underlying themes, which are very relevant in our current society. The theme of equality can be seen throughout the book, and it is the principle that is enshrined in America’s constitution now, whereby they claim that all men are equal. Kurt Vonnegut demonstrates the issue of equality in a Utopian society. Vonnegut in his story, cautions Americans on the dangers of creating a truly equalitarian society, whereby citizens go to an extent of sacrificing their freedom, and individuality to the state, to create a place where all people are equal. Vonnegut creates a society whereby, all people are made equal. The beautiful are forced to wear hideous masks to disfigure their beauty, those considered intelligent are to wear radio calls, and ear splitting noises that are supposed to impede their thinking, and the strong are forced to wear weights around their necks throughout the day. The author uses masks, and the weights as symbols to symbolize

Harrison Bergeron, a short story by Kurt Vonnegut, is not written for the light reader. This story of equality shows deeply of how horrid it would be to be born special, different, smarter, faster, stronger, etc, in a world where you are forced to be equal. Despite the usual connotation of the word equality, Kurt Vonnegut looks at the cost of making everyone be the same. He has shown through his words the torture you must endure in order to make you the same as everyone else, being a radio intending to scatter your thoughts, weights to weigh you down, or even a hideous, grotesque, mask used to hide your charming face. After you’ve lived with these handicaps a man, named Harrison Bergeron, trying to change how things are interrupts your show.

The story “Harrison Bergeron” is about a society in the future where people with beauty, strength, or intelligence are given handicaps in order to decrease these abilities they were born with so they are able to be brought down to a level that would make everyone equal to each other. Due to this, one Harrison Bergeron stood against the government by removing his handicaps as to regain his freedom from them, all while being watched on television by George and Hazel Bergeron. The book “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut is a story that teaches readers that you should never let anyone take away your freedom from you.

Kurt Vonnegut’s brilliant story, “Harrison Bergeron,” takes place in the year 2081. Thanks to the 211th, 212th, and 213th amendments “Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else”(Vonnegut 1). Everyone seems to have equal looks and abilities but to make this happen; they have to limit people so they can be equal to other people. People with natural beauty, gifted intelligence, or high strength have to use handicaps so they can be average like anyone else. They give people mental radios, masks, and sashweights so no one will get jealous. Because of these visible handicaps, people can tell who is stronger, prettier, and smarter. In the story, they describe one of the

"Harrison Bergeron" is a short story by Kurt Vonnegut. This story symbolizes freedom with the people knowing they have none being the fact that they can't be themselves. The government makes it mandatory not to be prettier, smarter, funnier, or more muscular than anyone else creating much irony when Harrison took off his hanicaps on live television. The government brings in much conflict making everyone be equal and do everything the same. Harrison Bergeron wanted to be himself and was the only one who was willing to face the consequinces.

In the story “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. the Constitution of the year 2081 perverts the original meaning and intent of our nation’s founding principle that “all men are created equal.” The U.S government assumes the role of ensuring not just equality under the law but uniformity of “intelligence,” and “thoughts” (Vonnegut, 1961). Talents are only identified so as to be targeted and suppressed. Conflict arises when someone is found that is so uniquely strong that heavy weights are hung on him to slow him down. A highly intelligent individual is forced to wear headphones so as to distract him from his own thoughts. A seven foot athletic man sporting “good looks” was forced to wear a bizarre mask out of concern his looks

In Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron” the time period is set in the future all the way to 2081. At this time everyone in society is completely equal in every way. The more intelligent and better looking individuals had to have a handicap radio in their ear and weights around their necks, while the “average” people had nothing on them. Harrison, the main character of the story was taken by the H-G men at the age of fourteen. In the short story it shows how he is treated differently than the others and how he defied the government.

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.

This short story was written during the Cold War but does it show a communist society or America in the future? Kurt Vonnegut’s strong belief in equality lead him to writing “Harrison Bergeron”(Hattenhauer). Vonnegut portrays his opinions in “Harrison Bergeron” with literary devices like satire, symbolism, and theme. Vonnegut uses satire throughout the whole story and keeps the readers “on their heels.”