Harrison Bergeron By Kurt Vonnegut, And Anthem

“All for one and one for all.” Is it an oath of loyalty and teamwork, or rather one of slavery and oppression? Where utopias are the light, dystopias are the dark. The former depicts an optimistic view of what civilization could be; the latter shows a pessimistic, sometimes an all too realistic portrayal of how our values and governments can be used to oppress the masses. One common example of dystopia seen throughout literature is the collective society, this idea is that the collective group is valued more than the individual. This concept was in no doubt popularized by the rise of the Soviet Union which resulted in the “Red Scare”. That then led to widespread fear of Communism, much less socialism in general. Two prominent dystopian works of this era are “Harrison Bergeron” by iconic science fiction writer and satirist Kurt Vonnegut, and Anthem by the legendary dystopian writer Ayn Rand, who herself escaped from Soviet Russia. While both pieces display a collective society, each author's dystopia is portrayed is unparalleled to any other.

Her society gives its citizens little to no freedom with extremely harsh punishments for even the slightest acting out of line. Anthem’s depiction of a collectivist society is far more extreme than that of “Harrison Bergeron.” To quote Anthem’s protagonist, Equality “The first blow of the lash felt like our spine had been cut in two. The second blow stopped the first and for a second we felt nothing. Then the pain struck us in our throat and fire ran in our lungs without air” (Rand 64). Equality is being abused in this case because he refused to tell his superiors where he was. Harrison Bergeron felt like it gave him more