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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.
Overall, Harrison Bergeron and 2081 are both centered around the same characters
“Repent Harlequin Said the Tictockman” by Harlan Ellison wrote in 1965 is about a time keeping government trying to achieve complete efficiency. The 1961 science fiction short story “Harrison Bergeron,” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., is about complete equality, disabling humanity from success. By examining elements of character analysis, tone, plot, setting, and diction, readers can see that these two dystopian stories can be compared and contrasted. “Repent Harlequin…” and “Harrison Bergeron” take place in alternate futures where the government has either taken control of everyone’s schedules or removed things that would make them unequal. Both stories are led by an antagonist and by someone who rebelled against them, but eventually, the rebellion fails and as far as we know the oppression goes on.
Can an overbearing government/society cause an individual to break down mentally and or physically? The thought of the government having some control over our lives can be seen as overbearing but to others it can be seen as a bubble of protection, George Orwell’s 1984 can be compared by a character’s act of rebellion due to the lack of freedom and contrasted by the repercussions of an individual rebelling to Kurt Vonnegut’s short story “Harrison Bergeron”. The act of rebelling is perceived as such a negative practice in both of the dystopian societies, on the occasion that one rebels it cause for drastic measures. In 1984 Winston Smith rebelled against Big Brother by doing whatever he pleased.
Throughout the two dystopian stories, there are significant changes in how the short stories are told and directed, causing one of the protagonists to be presented as more of the “bad guy”. However, the overall theme and most of the characterization is perceived the same. In “Harrison Bergeron”, everything is given in a humorous manner. From the characterization, to comical descriptions, to the things the characters say, nothing that Kurt Vonnegut wrote in this story can be taken seriously. By Vonnegut presenting his story in this manner, it almost creates Harrison to look more like a supervillain than a superhero, like intended.
Harrison Bergeron written by Kurt Vonnegut and Searching For Sunshine written by Joan Aiken are very similar, and different at different parts of each story. They both had similar time periods. In Harrison bergeron, their happiness was taken away by the government. In Searching For Sunshine, their happiness is taken away by the weather. In these stories, all the characters that are oppressed try to come out of the oppression from either the government, or weather.
The same story, whether fictional or not can be told and retold in a multitude of ways. One such story is the short story “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., and its film adaptation “2081”. Though the general plotline, the characters and most of the dialogue prevails through the changes the adaptation makes, The perspective on the events that transpire and the symbolic value of certain characters is completely different. The vastly different tones between the short film and short story can be seen clearly during and after the title character’s last moments, as he dances with his partner in front of a terrified and captivated audience. The effect (or lack thereof) of his actions and what he as a character means to the world are drastically
Laws are the key to having a well-mannered society. They are created with the intention of bringing good to the civilization. However, even actions with good intentions can end with devastating results. This is what occurs in Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s “Harrison Bergeron”. “Harrison Bergeron” is about a dystopian- like future that has had citizens stripped of their individuality due to an Amendment.
The story, Harrison Bergeron really shows the importance of diversity and for every individual to have a right to be unique. The government trying to make every thing completely fair is actually unfair to people who can 't get any excitement in a world like this. Limiting peoples thinking will also strongly slow any advances in technology, maybe even to a stop, so they might never solve some of the very important problems they face. Same with strength, if someones is in danger to an animal or a malfunctioning machine they will need to be able to escape. So really a world thats completely fair is impossible to create.
The Pedestrian Thesis: In a short story titled “The Pedestrian”, written by Ray Bradbury, Bradbury uses the setting to display a lonely, sad mood and person vs society conflict as he battles the lonely streets. Bradbury shows the lonely mood by having the character walk alone in the empty streets. Bradbury wasted no time describing the streets as silent and misty making for a very lonely mood. Mead, the main character, walks along the streets alone with no sign of life, saying “he would see cottages and homes with their dark windows, and it was not unequal to walking through a graveyard where the faintest light is a flicker of a firefly” Bradbury’s quote shows how empty and lonely the streets are by referring to them as a
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.
In “The Pedestrian” Ray Bradbury uses personification, simile, and imagery to develop the mood of loneliness so that the reader can understand the dark and lonely world the character is living in. This matters because it changes how the reader reads the story and it makes you better understand the character and the life the character is living. By using the quotes that the author did, it not only changed the mood of the story but it also changes the mood of the reader and how he/she
Ray Bradbury’s “The Pedestrian” is filled repeatedly with imagery. These descriptive phrases of imagery provide vivid details that make the story easy to imagine, so real and visual. Bradbury’s writing comes alive to the reader. This short story is about a peaceful man, walking by himself, who is picked up by the police and thrown in jail. Imagery helped readers understand the setting of “The pedestrian.”
In Ray Bradbury’s short story “The Pedestrian”, the motifs of the story were appeared a lot of times. Motifs always repeat in the story and give a dominant central idea to strengthen the theme. By reading the motifs in the story, we could learn more about the things that the writer wants to tell us. In this story, there are lots of words of motifs; for examples, silence, alone, darkness, empty and frozen. Those motifs shows the lacking of inspiration and excitement in the story and determines the dark keynote of the story.
To conclude, the similarities between “The Pedestrian” and “Harrison Bergeron” were that, in the end, everyone became equal. Although in The Pedestrian, the main character was changed, it was implied to be so. Another similarity, is the majority of people were the same, but there was always one outlier. The differences however, are many. The Pedestrian takes place in 2053, while Harrison Bergeron in
