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Elements Of Satire In Harrison Bergeron

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The perfect world, everyone will say we need world peace, and end hunger, but sometimes we just have to look at the world we are living in. Realize that we have a roof over our heads a transportation system to get us where we need to be, and friends and family always there. In the short story Harrison Bergeron satire and dystopian literature elements are used to create a tale of society creating an illusion of perfection, when limiting the gifted and ruining the human brain to be less than it can be. In the story Harrison Bergeron Kurt Vonnegut creates the ideal dystopian society making everyone equal. Those who are smarter than the average man or women are given a headpiece they must wear at all times that beeps into their brain after …show more content…

“The minute people start cheating on laws, what do you think happens to society?”. Which shows right there that you need competition to have a successful thriving economy. Competition is an essential part of life, and taking that away creates no winner and no loser, which has become a part of everyone's lives. They were watching dancing, but there could not be a winner or loser, so to us why would you watch it if everyone will win the same reward, it is like watching the olympics with everyone having the same level of talent.
People tend to argue that Harrison Bergeron is either a complete dystopian short story, with the individual oppressed eventually being crushed by the collective. Well others believe it is satire story, with ludicrously overpowered hero and equally ludicrous dystopian government. Which makes sense why most of the satire in this book is directed toward the government. With the politicians forcing “equality” on everyone through simply lowering the human standard, dehumanizing people. Harrison Bergeron related a lot to the Holocaust. very similar to Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General of the United States, Hitler wanted a perfect community so did this government, just instead of getting rid of people they go rid of their abilities that made them more equal to the average man, but the story actually is able to throw a mix of both satire and dystopian into the whole short story from beginning to the

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Karina Vasudeva 3/7/16 Period 4 Khouri What is Vonnegut satirizing? In Kurt Vonnegut’s extremely well-thought out story “Harrison Bergeron,” Vonnegut manages to effectively satirize the faults of socialism through exaggeration using figurative language, as well as paradoxical details. In the story, everyone is finally equal “due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments in the Constitution.” However, this is contradictory to the freedom of expression and other rights, as those with above average abilities are required to wear handicaps, or else they are jailed.

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In the short story Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut the main message or propaganda is that all the people are all the same no one was treated different. Vonnegut appeals to the audience through ethos and uses the rhetorical devices and literary devices of hyperbole and understatement to support the propaganda. The propaganda (message) in the short story Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut is that all people are created equal and nobody should be treated differently. “All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution”.

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The effect of all the citizens being “equal” was very much the same as in Fahrenheit 451, but the characters in “Harrison Bergeron” are constantly physically being kept from being individuals or doubting their government’s

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Now onto how Vonnegut,Jr uses the concept of ‘government in total control’ and the way he develops his characters. Harrison Bergeron is a short story that sets place in the future just like The Hunger Games but instead of humans being used as killing machine to kill others to win a game in this world we are all equal. You're probably thinking that this may not seem that bad but in reality this is horrific. The government is this books uses it power to put handicaps on other to make everyone the same. If you had any hint of beauty,there goes a bag over your face to mask it.

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Collectivism, the practice of giving a group priority over each individual in it. A well know author Kurt Vonnegut is the author of a well-known dystopian piece by the name of “Harrison Bergeron”. This is a story set in the future and civilized with “full equality”. Another well-known story Anthem by Ayn Rand, is also based on a future dystopia. Anthem is based on a collective society, rather than an equal one.

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Harrison Bergeron is a novel where the author is expressing what he thinks society is leading to and what the problems are. Harrison Bergeron is the main character and his points of view and thinking matters are interesting to investigate. This author made everyone the same. Societies are pressuring people to become the same and making people think that if they don 't look or act some sort of way, they don 't matter or serve to our world, causing many people to go to certain limits and even causing suicide as a solution. In the story, everyone thinks the same, everyone walks the same, hears the same.

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The people that were trying to make the world a better place did the exact opposite of that. The theme of this short story would be that absolute power corrupts all; even the people who were trying to do good. This is a good theme for “Harrison Bergeron” since both the government and Harrison had been corrupted while trying to make the world

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“Harrison Bergeron,” written by Kurt Vonnegut at the time of the Cold War, is a short story that takes place in a future world of the year 2081 where the Handicapper General and the law force the beautiful to wear masks, the intelligent to wear earpieces that disrupt their thoughts, and the athletic to wear heavy physical restraints, so that everyone may be equal in the categories of beauty, intelligence, and athleticism; a world where the people “[are] equal in every which way.” (Vonnegut 1) What the many readers of “Harrison Bergeron” seem to misinterpret is that the entire story is an allegory to the political systems of Socialism/Communism and that Vonnegut utilizes symbols in the story that either expose the glaring flaws of left-wing politics or advance the supposedly far-superior ideology of American capitalism. In actuality, Vonnegut’s use of symbols in “Harrison Bergeron,” and the entire story itself is a satire of the common American’s ignorant misunderstandings of left-wing politics at the time of the Cold War. Vonnegut once said at a college commencement speech, “I suggest that you work for a socialist form of government … It isn 't moonbeams to talk of modest plenty for all.

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To begin, “Harrison Bergeron” starts off in the future, also stating that “everybody was finally equal” (Vonnegut 1). This small part of the story is actually very important in the, seeing how the whole story revolves around the idea of equality. Vonnegut’s main message

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With people pushing for equality, Vonnegut shows us a world that society is working toward. Through this “prediction” of the future, the author uses Diana Moon Glampers and Harrison Bergeron as examples to show the tragedies of the two measures- are they too equal or too unjust. Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, resembles the idea of fairness in this society. She is in charge of changing the capability of bright and intelligent people to being completely normal.

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‘’Harrison Bergeron’’ by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is a story about a young man that lives in a dystopia where everything is ‘’equal’’ and gets killed for disobeying the laws. Through ‘’Harrison Bergeron’’ Kurt Vonnegut Jr. utilized the characters Harrison and the ballerina to show that total equality is impossible when everybody is different from one another. Harrison is a hero among individuality along with the brave ballerina that chose to stand with him to be who she is. Harrison Bergeron shows a clear example of heroism. He announces that he will become the emperor, and that he will take away everybody's equality and give them individuality and uniqueness as he will be above everyone else.

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Irony is the most powerful literary device used in the short story, “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. First, a good example of irony in the story is “They were burdened with sashweights sand bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in.” (P,2 Line, 11-13) This quote is Ironic as it tells how this system was designed to hide beauty, yet beauty was still shown by the amount of restraints on the person. Second, another good example of irony is, “The spectacles were intended to make him not only half-blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides.

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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.

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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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The people of the United States fight and strive for an absolute “equal” society, but is it what’s really wanted? “Harrison Bergeron,” a short story written by Kurt Vonnegut, uses satire to describe the deficiency in our idea of a truly “equal” society. Throughout the story, Vonnegut describes the torture and discomfort the government administers among the people, and though they were “equal,” they were not balanced. Vonnegut uses characterization and word choice to warn his readers of the potential drawbacks of a truly “equal” society. He warns normalcy would become the base of thought, and people would become incapable of emotion.

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