ipl-logo

Harrison Bergeron Comparative Analysis

744 Words3 Pages

Comparative Analysis Essay Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and Roy Bradbury are both science fiction writers. Although both writers write about different topics, some of their ideas are similar. They both write about what life would be like if we were to break away from objects that separate us from happiness. The style of writing is unique in which Bradbury follows this sad, calm and unexpected plot. On the other hand, Vonnegut initiates his story with humor and ends with happiness and sorrow, while satirizing the government. Vonnegut shares his satirical writing in his story Harrison Bergeron. Bradbury expresses his story in, Marionettes Inc. Although both writers demonstrate what life would be like with finding a way to happiness, their ideas are very …show more content…

Since Vonnegut satirizes the government, it make his story humorous. Whereas, Bradbury’s writing is more suspenseful. For instance, when Vonnegut writes about how the government tries to equalize everyone, he says, “they were burdened with sash weights… their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face…”. The reader realizes that the text is a fictional piece of writing made to put a smile on one’s face. Vonnegut also writes, “...to offset his good looks...he was required to wear at all times a red rubber ball for a nose, keep his eyebrows shaved off…” to create a picture of how the government creates absurd physical appearances to repel people. While Vonnegut uses humor, Bradbury uses suspense to create a dark atmosphere. One example is when Braling wants to put his clone away, but the clone responds saying, “ The cellar. I don’t like it. I don’t like that tool box.” Due to the dialogue, at this point in the story the reader can sense that the clone will go against his owner. The tone of the writers set a mood for the reader to share a relationship with the

Show More
Related
298 Words | 2 Pages

Another way Bradbury disapproves of the government is by symbolizing the Mechanical Hound as the supremacy of the government. For example, the Mechanical Hound was built to seek ownership of books, and to necessarily take away souls, “‘...because all we put into it is hunting and finding and killing… ‘Hell! It’s a fine bit of craftsmanship, a good rifle that can fetch its own target and guarantees the bull’s-eye every time’” (31). This quote explains how the Mechanical Hound is a threatening machine that will assist the firemen to track down the people with custody of books.

Read More
941 Words | 4 Pages

Numerous authors and historians have found inspiration and fascination in the myths, realities, and legacies of the American frontier. Bruce Catton, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Civil War historian, wrote a memoir of his youth in a small town in western Michigan created by religious idealists in the late 1800s. Waiting for the Morning Train is a nostalgic and lyrical depiction of an earlier time period, as well as a reflection on the personal and social changes that Catton experienced growing up around the turn of the twentieth century. In this paper, I will focus on one of Catton's primary themes, the impact of the lumber business on the environment and the economy of Michigan. I'll look at how Catton watched his state's shift from wilderness

Read More
714 Words | 3 Pages

Comparing and contrasting 2081 to Harrison Bergeron Admit it, one time you were bored or sat down with nothing to do and couldn’t help but imagine how life would be if everyone was equal, don’t even try denying it, you’ve thought of that at least once in your life, but as any good writer would do, they’d write their thoughts down and turn it into a story, that’s exactly what Kurt Vonnegut did. Just imagine living a life where no one gets compared to others in any way. We all wish for a society like that, but Kurt showed us how equality can negatively affect our society. But that’s not the our main idea in this essay, our main idea is to highlight the comparisons and contrasts between the story “Harrison Bergeron” and the movie version “2081”. To begin with, Both the story and the movie had the same introduction/ Opening; “Everybody was finally equal.

Read More
789 Words | 4 Pages

Harrison Bergeron was a book written in 1961 that portrayed an abnormal child defying the dystopian government; in 2009 a movie was made, based off of it called 2081 that changed the character both physically and morally. The differences in how Harrison Bergeron, the main character, appears in each story changes how the audience perceives his morality. These changes are easily highlighted in Harrison’s age, dialogue, and appearance. The tone of the story is also changed, resulting in similar changes to what the audience interprets. As both stories continue these differences become more and more apparent and by the end, there is a clear split in what the audience ‘takes away’.

Read More
1515 Words | 7 Pages

Books and movies have been around for many years and lately movie directors have been making more and more movies based off of books. Most people do not know that around 50% of movies are based off of books. Although, it really depends on what people mean when a movie is “based” off a book. Some directors say a movie is based off a book, but has a different plot and seems totally different. So, in order to keep true to the book, directors keep the plot relatively the same, but there are a few times they decide to change the message entirely by changing just a few key events.

Read More
673 Words | 3 Pages

Throughout Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut intertwines reality and fiction to provide the reader with an anti-war book in a more abstract form. To achieve this abstraction, Kurt Vonnegut utilizes descriptive images, character archetypes, and various themes within the novel. By doing so, he created a unique form of literature that causes the reader to separate reality from falsehood in both their world, and in the world within Vonnegut’s mind. Vonnegut focuses a lot on the characters and their actions in “Slaughterhouse Five.”

Read More
663 Words | 3 Pages

Armani Sierra-Bolejack Mr. Brookes English 4 March 22, 2023 Harrison Berguson ~ Kurt Vonnegut In the short story, Harrison Bergeron, what will be discussed is how the author of the Kurt Vonnegut, used features of dystopia to convey his central message. The central message of the story is that true equality can never be achieved, humans can never be equal. The three ways that Vonnegut portrays dystopia is through Authoritarian rule/Dictatorship, citizens under constant surveillance and fear.

Read More
1106 Words | 5 Pages

People are influenced by the events that surround them. Individuals transform into a product of their environment and experiences of the time. The literature and art often reflects the time period in which it is written in, and Vonnegut’s novel is no exception. The novel takes place during World War II, but is written during the time of the Vietnam War. With the Vietnam War, came a lot of anti-war propaganda.

Read More
1077 Words | 5 Pages

Trout uses science fiction and its different elements such as cognitive estrangement and structural fabulation in order to build a metaphor that guides the reader into thinking about an aspect of society that the author wants to criticize. This communicative piece intends to portray social criticism in the way Vonnegut does it, but taken to our reality and analyzing aspects we want to condemn. We opened the book on chapter nine and decided to write our own new plot as if Billy Pilgrim was the one reading it. We wrote the text and inserted it as part of the chapter in order to adhere it to the rest of society’s criticism seen in the book in the very best Vonnegut style. In order to interpret Vonnegut’s intentions and purpose of social criticism throughout Slaughterhouse Five, specially in chapter nine, it´s necessary to understand science fiction and its elements.

Read More
923 Words | 4 Pages

One common afternoon in the year of 2081, when everyone was equal, Hazel and George Bergeron were in their lovely living room watching television. Suddenly, a news reporter with a severe speech impediment came on. After trying many times to say, “Good morning ladies and gentlemen,” he handed it off to a ballerina who read, “Harrison Bergeron, age 14, has just escaped from jail, where he was held on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government. He is a genius and an athlete, is under-handicapped, and should be regarded as extremely dangerous.” However, in this short story “Harrison Bergeron”, Kurt Vonnegut uses irony, shift and mood, and allusion to illustrated haw society would be if everyone was under the law of equality.

Read More
513 Words | 3 Pages

Vonnegut writes about a

Read More
740 Words | 3 Pages

“Government 's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives”. The short story Harrison Bergeron is written by Kurt Vonnegut. It is the year 2081; because of the new Amendments to the constitution everyone is now equal. One day, Harrison Bergeron is taken away from his parents’ home, George and Hazel. They are both unaware of what is happening because George is required to wear a radio in his ear that makes it so he cannot comprehend what is happening around him, the reason he must wear this is because he is smart.

Read More
1735 Words | 7 Pages

Harrison Bergeron, a story written by Kurt Vonnegut Jr, shows a society where everyone is the same, no one is- or allowed to be, better than anyone else. The story takes place in a futuristic society during 2081. The main two people in this story are Hazel and George Bergeron. George, along with most people, has sacks filled with birdshot, and a handicap radio.

Read More
1823 Words | 8 Pages

Kurt Vonnegut uses characterization to describe how the characters act in this society. Vonnegut also uses style to show how he uses science fiction and dystopia in “Harrison Bergeron”. The theme demonstrated in “Harrison Bergeron” is equality is not meant to make one person better than another. Kurt Vonnegut in “Harrison Bergeron”, demonstrates that equality based on characteristics is not a good thing for society. Harrison Bergeron is a short story based on the year 2081, where everybody is equal.

Read More
526 Words | 3 Pages

Ray Bradbury, the author of Fahrenheit 451, presents a society in which humans suffer from depression, fear, and loss of empathy which are the result of censorship of free thought and knowledge. Humans suffer from loss of empathy due to their lack of human interaction. People live in fear of the government as the dystopian society deprives the people of knowledge. Depression is evidenced by suicidal tendencies caused by hollow lives. Bradbury uses the loss of empathy in order to demonstrate the effects that censorship of free thought and knowledge have upon the individual and society.

Read More

More about Harrison Bergeron Comparative Analysis

Related Topics

Open Document