Equity And Leading Oppression In Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron

Nathan Madrid

Mr. Daryl Lemos

ENGL-1094

22 May, 2023

Forcing Equity and Leading Oppression

Equality, or equity, is something that we as a society have been striving to achieve since we were first created. The reason why we still haven't achieved that equity is because each of us has our own definitions of what it means to be equal. Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron”, written in 1961 depicts exactly that problem. In Vonnegut’s dystopian, futuristic society, everyone deemed above average is given handicaps in order to make sure they have no advantage over another, and they face drastic consequences if they disobey or take off their handicaps. The punishments for taking these handicaps off in the story outlines the danger of complete equity.

… She aimed at the musicians and told them they had ten seconds to get their handicaps back on” (850). This moment in the story is short and abrupt, and creates a shocking and tense atmosphere that shows once and for all that the government-created equality will stand even if others try to fight back, which gives an answer to an unasked question; the question of whether or not the society they are in is one that someone can be themselves or fight back against. The people who have power will always win against the ones who don’t, and the equality that was created in the 211th, 212th, and 213th amendments in the year 2081 was not changing, whether people were oppressed by it or not.

Equality is something that people as a society have been striving to achieve since we were first created. Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron” proves that equality is not something that is possible, because in order to reach a state of complete equality in theory, others would have to be oppressed in some way, whether it be slight or extreme. This story is an example of the extreme and restrictive side of that, and shows that the handicapping of individuals in order to achieve equality outlines the danger of complete