“A lie told often enough becomes truth” -Vladimir Lenin. Lies are the pillars of the society in Ayn Rand’s Anthem and Kurt Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron. These lies are produced by the government and distributed to the citizens of these dystopian nations in the name of equality. The governments in both writings are looking to achieve equality, however the methods by which this is done differs greatly. In Harrison Bergeron and Anthem the societies depicted both strive for equality in dramatically different ways, yet Anthem’s society is much more successful in achieving true equality, due to the way that the state influences its citizens and penalizes them for improper actions. The physical control of the citizens in Rand’s Anthem is much more …show more content…
A Prime example of the mental control in Anthem, which was briefly touched upon earlier, is the brainwashing of the children from a young age to believe that they are nothing and “mankind is all” (21) and that “[they] exist through, by and for our brothers who are the State” (21). The main mental control device found in Harrison Bergeron is a “Mental Handicap” that plays loud tones at semi-regular intervals to disrupt the wearer’s train of thought and prevent the development of and major thoughts. Those who do not have these handicaps are seen as having “average” intelligence; people with “average” intelligence, such as Hazel Bergeron appear to be below the average intelligence seen in Anthem. Proof of her low intelligence, or cognitive ability, is clear seen when George Bergeron tells Hazel to “Forget sad things” with which Hazel replies “I always do”; This can be sigh of a mental disability, but due to the fact that Hazel is labeled as “average” this must mean that there are far more affected by a similar condition. The opposite is seen in Anthem if the protagonist, Equality-2521, is seen to have average intelligence. Evidence of this would be that Equality was able to reinvent the electric light, a significant improvement over the candle light which was used at that time. With this in mind, though a population with intelligences similar to that of Hazel Bergeron would be easy to control, the citizens found in Rand’s Anthem are brainwashed to do nothing but follow the commands given to them by their form of government, thus making them a much more control