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Harrison Bergeron Summary

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An Analysis of the Conflict between Government and Citizens in Kurt Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron. In “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., there underlies a conflict over control between the government and the civilians of the United States in year 2081. Vonnegut often employs repressive diction in this piece of writing to create the scene of an oppressive government and the oppressed civilians in society. Words such as,”unceasing”, “unfair”, “panic”, and “gunshot” are exposed to the reader from the onset of their reading experience(Vonnegut,1). These words serve to create a tone of fear and unsettlement, hinting towards a conflict within the American Society. The aim of the government is to control the people or, in Vonnegut’s words, …show more content…

The people who were smarter than the others had radios in their ears as a mental handicap. They were required by law to wear it at all times and every 20 seconds the transmitter would send out a sharp noise to keep people from taking unfair advantages of their brains. Furthermore, people who were stronger and quicker had a chain around their necks that had weights on the ends to bring them to slow their pace. In other words, the citizen’s abilities could be said to be repressed by the government as the citizens are not given the freedom to think or act of their own will. This is a horrible idea because the differences we all possess is what makes society so great. If we all thought the same we wouldn’t have such great things in our society we would all be plain and boring. Civilians are being forced to do all these things or there will be measures taken. With the tone of fear present in the reading, the society can be seen as unhappy with their oppression because it feels like they are imprisoned by the government. Harrison Bergeron was one of the civilians who had many handicaps and can be presumed as a beautiful and capable human being. Harrison Bergeron rebelled against the government by removing all his restrictions and wanted to lead the charge to have all these

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