ipl-logo

Equality And Injustice In Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron

1013 Words5 Pages

Equality is an aspect of life that everyone strives for because freedom is something everyone wants. Equality is defined as the quality or state of being equal: the quality or state of having the same rights, social status, etc. ("Equality."). Equality has just recently made its way into human society. For thousands of years, humans have had anything but equality. We’ve had enslaved each other, restricted peoples’ basic rights, and made people follow inhumane laws. In a perfect (utopian) society, everyone is equal, but, with equality, injustice always follows. Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron” is a poem set in year 2081 where the government has made society overly equal. The government handicaps the citizens who are above average in intelligence, beauty, strength, and speed. This equality is due to their “211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General” (Vonnegut). With these amendments, everyone is literally equal. No one is more beautiful or smarter than everyone else and also no one is faster or stronger than anyone else. The way they handicap these citizens is where the injustice is rooted. In Kurt Vonnegut’s …show more content…

Diana represents the extremes of equality through her unjust system of government, and Harrison represents the extremes of inequality, individualism, and freedom through a caste system where only the wealthy people will be able to express their selves and have freedom. Both Harrison and Diana’s ideas of equality has corrupt consequences in which Diana’s takes away individuality and Harrison’s takes away equality and freedom. In this story, Vonnegut illustrates that the only society that should exist is one that accepts individuality and lets its citizen be equal without any physical

Show More
Related

Kurt Vonnegut Rhetorical Analysis

59 Words | 1 Pages

the idea of equality was taken to the extreme. Satire is also used to exaggerate how awful equality is to persuade readers to believe that total equality will violate human rights. Kurt Vonnegut also uses symbols such as handicaps which make everyone equal and Harrison Bergeron to display the lack of freedom present in a world of total equality.

Read More

Irony And Symbolism In Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron

940 Words | 4 Pages

This is a short, but powerful excerpt from the short story “Harrison Bergeron”. Not only does it make you wonder why everyone is equal, but makes you wonder how in the world did everyone become equal? The short film, 2081 is based off of its short story “Harrison Bergeron”, yet their stories are quite different from each other. In the short story and the short film, Kurt Vonnegut presents a scary view of human society in the United States in the future, in which the citizens are all uniform. This then leads to their loss of individuality, and therefore to the absolute deformity of humanness.

Read More

Examples Of Individualism In Harrison Bergeron

707 Words | 3 Pages

This government made everyone became handicapped so that everyone is the same and equal and no one is better than the others. Vonnegut’s view on equality is very judgemental and selective. Society these days, pressures

Read More

How Does Kurt Vonnegut Use Dramatic Irony In Harrison Bergeron

378 Words | 2 Pages

In 1961, America was undergoing two major events, the Cold War and the Civil Rights Movement. These two events would go on to be a prominent theme in Kurt Vonnegut’s writing. Harrison Bergeron is the short story to highlight these two movements. Vonnegut uses dramatic irony to go forth and essentially twist the meaning of equality. In his world, equality means dragging everyone down to the same, average level.

Read More

Single Paragraph Essay: Harrison Bergeron

208 Words | 1 Pages

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.

Read More

Absolute Equality In Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron

1063 Words | 5 Pages

The Importance of Absolute Equality in “Harrison Bergeron” For hundreds of years, humanity has struggled to define equality, as well implement the concept properly into society. Slaves; prisoners of war; and even in today’s society, we still see people of color treated as lesser than their Caucasian counterparts. Interestingly enough, color is never introduced as a problem in Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s “Harrison Bergeron”. While most people nowadays would agree that the word “equality” refers to equal opportunity, Vonnegut forces this word to the extremes, and warps its meaning into something much more controlling, to the point where it harms society more than inequality ever did.

Read More

Socialism And Capitalism In Harrison Bergeron, By Kurt Vonnegut

1237 Words | 5 Pages

“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.

Read More

Harrison Bergeron Literary Analysis Essay

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

Fairness In Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron

826 Words | 4 Pages

“Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are”- Benjamin Franklin. Although many believe that the world is a minor step away from achieving equality for all, these individuals’ are strongly mistaken. Unfortunately, individuals’ often overlook various occurrences’ of inequitable treatment in their own lives; due to their modernized outlook on fairness, as well as what the term “being fair” truly stands for in society. Throughout my lifetime I have been exposed to an immense amount of lessons connecting to the same base of social justice issues worldwide. However, several short stories as well as seminars in particular have created a substantial impact on my perspective towards the topic.

Read More

Capitalism And Communism In Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron

1295 Words | 6 Pages

In Kurt Vonnegut 's “Harrison Bergeron,” he paints the picture of society that has had total equality forced onto its people to show the extent to which too much power can be abused. He puts the United States government and Harrison

Read More

What Is The Cost Of Equality In Harrison Bergeron

519 Words | 3 Pages

The story “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut is about a couple, Hazel and George Bergeron, in the distant future when all people must be equal. This equality is reached in the form of handicaps. Weights are placed on the strong and athletic people in society, masks are forced upon the beautiful, and loud noises are constantly blasted into the ears of the intelligent to prevent them from thinking. While most equality is often thought of as good, the story shows a much darker side, using the government’s forceful equalization of the people. “Harrison Bergeron” uses multiple perspectives to highlight the costs of equality paralleled in today’s society.

Read More

Situational Irony In Harrison Bergeron

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

Read More

Satire In Harrison Bergeron

589 Words | 3 Pages

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.

Read More

Argumentative Essay: All Men Are Created Equal

1248 Words | 5 Pages

“All men are created equal” is probably a phrase that most Americans and people who are studying American history heard before. It can be found in the Declaration of Independence (1776), but can be also interpreted in different phrasings of the Constitution. According to the Meriam-Webster dictionary, equality is “the quality or state of being equal: the quality or state of having the same rights, social status, etc.”, whereas justice can be understood as “the quality of being just, impartial, or fair”. In this regard, equality means that every person has the same ‘starting position’ looking at abilities, history, and life circumstances, whereas justice gives people fair ‘starting positions’ in order to gain equality. Therefore, debates about

Read More

Speech On Equality

2442 Words | 10 Pages

What is its definition, it 's purpose for being a word? Well, equality basically means to be, you know the same, being in common right? If that is then, how do we live in an equal society when all of us are....

Read More

More about Equality And Injustice In Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron

Related Topics

Open Document