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Corruption In The Short Story 'Harrison Bergeron'

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Imagine, you’re living in a perfect world and everything about life is great. That is until the government takes over and schemes together a plan to make everyone equal by adding handicaps to over excelled people. By making everyone equal, the whole entire world is in sake for a dangerous situation caused by the effects from the handicap. This is what the short story “Harrison Bergeron” is based about. Some dangerous possible situations that can happen from this includes: handicap effects on the human body, total charge from the government, no entertainment and a massive breakout. From the text, I am able to conduct a claim that total equality is a mistaken goal that can have serious damage to the world if it ever happened. In the story …show more content…

But a big reason that doesn’t get thought about a lot is there would be little to no entertainment at all. There would be no standout athlete or gorgeous girls. There would be nothing to work for because everyone would be equal. The more you start to excel, the more handicaps you would get. This would cause no “star” people and would be a very gloomy place. In the story, Harrison succeeded very fast which caused him to get into trouble for being too powerful and good looking. “Harrison carried three hundred pounds “and “to offset his good looks, the H-G men required that he wears at all times a red rubber ball for a nose” (Vonnegut 1390). This is what the government does to advanced humans. Imagine living in a world like that. Where pretty much nothing is enjoyable. This ruins everything including any type of sport also. With just about everyone having the same handicaps in, playing anything would be impossible. In the text, it says “Two of the eight ballerinas had collapsed to the studio floor and were holding their temples” (Vonnegut 1388). If ballerinas can’t even do their job, how will everyone else in the world do? It would be nearly impossible to do everyday things from the effects of

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In “Harrison Bergeron” the handicaps make all of the citizens exactly the same. The handicaps do not let people be who they really are and actually holds back the citizens ability to do things. It seems like the handicaps actually make it worse for the advanced people because it makes them suffer. “They weren’t really very good-no better than anybody else would have been anyway.... George was toying with the vague notion that maybe dancers shouldn’t be handicapped.

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Harrison Bergeron Essay Claim: Being equal isn’t always fair. Intro: What if someone had to wear a handicap? Or what if someone had to be treated exactly like everyone else?

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Single Paragraph Essay “ Harrison Bergeron ” “ Harrison Bergeron ,” written by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. focuses on equality — physically andmentally — strongly controlled by the government in the year 2081; the beautiful are forced tolook ugly, the physically skilled are required to wear weights. With these handicaps makingeveryone so equal, the world became very different, odd, and average. But the government hasno right or reason to push the whole world to be “…equal every which way.” (203) To suppress someone’s natural looks or physical talents is not only wrong to natural human rights, but it is also illegal, and for very good reason: everyone is different.

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819 Words | 4 Pages

In the short story, “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut, everyone is made equal by making the more ‘advantaged’ humans ‘handicapped.’ However, the equality wasn’t ideal, so Harrison the perfect being of this society, wanted to make adjustments to their society, and does it in a forceful way. “‘I am the Emperor!’ cried Harrison. ‘Do you hear?

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955 Words | 4 Pages

“Harrison Bergeron” is a short fiction written by Kurt Vonnegut, the story is set in the year 2081, and it talks about a futuristic society where all people are equal. No one is smarter, beautiful or stronger than the other, and if someone happens to be better than the others they find themselves compelled by The United States Handicapper General to wear what they call “handicaps” in order to bring down their abilities to the most basic levels as the others. Throughout the story, Vonnegut expresses a strong and vigorous political and social criticism of some historical events in the US during 1960s such as the Cold War and Communism, television and American Culture and Civil Rights Movement. “Harrison Bergeron” was published in 1961 during that time several events were happening around the world in general and in the US in specific which was engaged in a series of political and economic crisis with the communist Soviet Union know as The

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544 Words | 3 Pages

The quote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. ” summarizes what Harrison is fighting for. The year 2081, there is finally equality, but to be made equal there are many individuals that are made handicapped because they are better than everyone else. Harrison is one that is made handicapped and tension arose between the handicap general and Harrison. Harrison believed that being handicapped stops him from showing his full potential.

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519 Words | 3 Pages

“Harrison Bergeron” shows total equality in an extreme way that catches attention, to show there are consequences to this often sought after way of life. The author uses the extreme ways the government forces equality to demonstrate how equality actually degrades society as a whole. The story showed how forced equality can make people have unrealistic and absurd world views, and how important jobs in society are left to people who are incompetent and unfit for the job. All of these consequences are easily paralleled in society today, and, unless people recognize the danger, could quickly become a serious

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526 Words | 3 Pages

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.

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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.

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The short story “Harrison Bergeron”, was first published in October 1961 issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Some other works Kurt Vonnegut has written are, “Player Piano”, “The Sirens of Titan”, “Mother Night”, and “Cats Cradle” are just a few of the novels Vonnegut has written. Kurt Vonnegut has drawn on facts and incidents in his own life in his writings. Kurt’s short stories range from visions of future societies, that are extensions of modern societies. Many of his writings are ones that are science fiction.

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660 Words | 3 Pages

In the short story, “Harrison Bergeron” Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. relies on the use of irony to indicate where our country will stand once we have gained total equality amongst each other. The theme in “Harrison Bergeron” is that the government cannot enforce equality within the people. The author creates a fictional visualization of the future in the year 2081, where the government controls the people and tortures them in order to maintain “equal opportunity” in their world to prove why it is impossible to achieve absolute equality in the world. Vonnegut dives into a whole other level of uniformity in Harrison Bergeron by focusing on eliminating advantages in appearance, intelligence, strength, and other unique abilities rather than focusing on

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302 Words | 2 Pages

In “Harrison Bergeron”, each person was not truly equal. For example, the ballerinas in the story were prettier than the maximum people, so they were required to wear masks. Hazel, the mother of Harrison, believed that the ballerinas were beautiful since her mask was extremely ugly. Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicap General, forces them to be like the public and will punish anyone who says different. Consequently a few people enjoy being the same, it is not easy, and following the Handicap General’s rules is challenging.

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305 Words | 2 Pages

“Harrison Bergeron” is a unique story, in the sense that it takes place in 2081 in a dystopian society where everyone is equal. No one could be smarter, better-looking, or more athletic than anyone else. They are made equal with mental handicap radios for those who are intelligent, hideous masks for those who are beautiful, and heavy weights for those who are strong. The main character of this story, Harrison Bergeron, has a conflict with the American society in 2081. The internal conflict in Harrison’s mind is that the mental and physical handicaps affect the people’s thoughts.

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349 Words | 2 Pages

No matter how many handicaps you put on someone they aren’t going to change. It’s kind of like trying to cover up beauty with a mask or make-up. Handicaps have no value in making anyone equal. Although equality is needed, no one in “Harrison Bergeron” is solely based on appearance and how smart you are. Equality is treating everyone one with the same amount of respect so therefore, no one in this short story is

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1055 Words | 5 Pages

Government Control Everyone has felt smarter or maybe not so smart, due to others intelligence once in their lifetime. In a world full of different people this can happen often. However, what if there were a world where everyone was equal? No person was smarter than the other, and everyone had the same level of intelligence. In the movie, Harrison Bergeron, he is a very gifted boy who is against a “government” that makes the entire society equal by handicapping the more gifted, down to the level of the less fortunate or incapable.(Bruce “Harrison”)

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