Equality In Harrison Bergeron

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

Have you ever wondered what the world would be like if everyone was legally forced into the governments opinion of equality? In Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s short story "Harrison Bergeron", it is the year 2081 and the government has altered society to be mentally, physically and socially equal. The beautiful people are covered with hideous masks, the intelligent people wear ear pieces that let off loud obnoxious sounds at random to throw off there thought process and the strong people wear weights to be equal to the weaker people. The society is not equal because no one can truly be changed unless they want to be. Putting a handicap on an intelligent person does not make him or her equal to an average person,

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.

Do you think society would improve if everyone was equal? Even though people may argue with me, I say that everyone isn’t truly equal in the story, Harrison Bergeron. I say this due to how people that are naturally born with above average intelligence, strength, and looks gorgeous has to wear handicaps to hide their unique abilities. Another reason is that some people are either respected or disrespected because of their special talents. Thirdly, some people in the story does not need to follow the law, even if they are a citizen of the United States, which means that everyone does not have equal rights.

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

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.

Society should not be equal because we are all different even if they did put use in groups based on are similarities there still would be some difference. In the story ”Harrison Bergeron” the main characters has a son and he is different and they want him to be equal so they lock him up and but all these device on him to make him just like everyone else. “. He is a genius and an athlete, is under-handicapped, and should be regarded as extremely dangerous.” “ Harrison Bergeron single the ones that look or talk different or dance better “She must have been extraordinarily beautiful, because the mask she wore was hideous. And it was easy to see that she was the strongest and most graceful of all the dancers, for her handicap bags were as big as those worn by two-hundred pound men”.They want everyone to be the same so they make the special people handicap so they won't be different.

Vonnegut sets his story in 2081, where everyone is equal. No one is smarter, more talented, stronger, or better looking. The government in his story controlled everyone and how they acted and thought with machines. Those who were smarter had a mental handicap radio’s in their ear that made a noise every so often throwing them off the train of thought. The stronger ones had to carry around weight at all times, to make them equal to the weak. Those who were beautiful had to wear mask, or were made to look less beautiful. All competition was gone. However, Vonnegut shows that trying to control everyone, so all are equal is impossible, and can lead to disastrous things. In the story, Harrison Bergeron was arrested for suspicion of overthrowing the government. He escaped jail and on the TV episode of the ballerinas, people watched him take over. He allowed himself and others to take off the equipment controlling them and everyone became an individual again. Until, the leader came in and killed Harrison and the beautiful ballerina as they were dancing. Things became equal again, but not perfect.

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.

Often times our society confuses equality for equal. Although the words may look same and share similar letters, the two have completely different definitions. As an African American citizen living in America I feel like we focus much on being equal opposed to having equality. Thus when having equality you are giving equal opportunity and more door become available, despite when being equal you are just like everyone else. However, unlike the novel “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. I would rather have equality than to be one hundred percent equal to someone else. When making everyone equal you take away ones individuality, creativity, and strengths; eliminating competition and status feuds. Yet in order for them to make everyone equal they must instill fear and diagnoses everyone with false handicaps.

What is equality? Well, equality is the state of being equal, especially in status, rights, and opportunities. Equality is a great feature of the United States but sometimes it's overlooked and forgotten. In Harrison Bergeron, they tried to make everyone 100% equal but it simply didn't work.True equality is defined differently in both Harrison Bergeron and The Declaration.

A perfect society where everyone is equal due to a variety of handicaps, but is everyone truly equal? In ‘harrison Bergeron” anyone who had any abilities whatsoever are forced to wear different handicaps depending on their ability except for the one person called the handicapper general, who does have power and is in charge of keeping the peace. If anyone disobeyes the law that forces them to wear handicaps, would be put in jail or even killed if they threatened the government's authority. Harrison Bergeron is a 14 year old boy who was put in jail because he had extraordinary abilities and he was suspected of plotting to overthrow the government.

Is it equal in the Harrison Bergeron Book? I think not because if we all are the same then you could not have talent or jobs because who would you hire? It is normal for competition; that's why you have to learn from your mistakes, you can get better or try something else. Someone will always be better than you at something but you have to find your talents and use them.

Since people have handicaps, it is hard for them to be their self and good at something. When the television program was interrupted the announcer “like all announcers, he had a serious speech impediment”(Vonnegut 3). The announcer eventually gave up speaking on the announcement because his handicap was making it hard for him to speak, so he gave it to a ballerina to read. And when George watches the ballerinas dance he realizes that “they weren’t really very good- no better than anybody else would have been, anyway. They were burdened with sashweights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked”(Vonnegut 1). This quote shows that they were just as good as anyone else would have been since they were weighted down by birdshot and their beautiful faces were masked so no one would be jealous of them.

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