ipl-logo

Utopian Society In Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron

330 Words2 Pages
Kurt Vonnegut’s story, “Harrison Bergeron” is about a utopian society that has a government that believes in equality in every concept. Three amendments were created by the government in the year 2081. People in the utopia suffer from the control and absolute power of the government and obey their equality laws by wearing handicaps, when a majority of the people are really not. One lesson this story demonstrates is ‘don’t let anyone overpower you.’ In the beginning, it shows and describes the handicaps that some people wear. “...And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it all times.” In the line it says, “He was required by the law to wear it
Show More
Related
768 Words | 4 Pages

The story reveals, "George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times" (Vonnegut). This demonstrates the suppression of individuality and the elimination of any advantages that could make a person stand out. Both stories illustrate the severe consequences individuals face when they deviate from societal

Read More
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
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
955 Words | 4 Pages

“Harrison Bergeron” is a short fiction written by Kurt Vonnegut, the story is set in the year 2081, and it talks about a futuristic society where all people are equal. No one is smarter, beautiful or stronger than the other, and if someone happens to be better than the others they find themselves compelled by The United States Handicapper General to wear what they call “handicaps” in order to bring down their abilities to the most basic levels as the others. Throughout the story, Vonnegut expresses a strong and vigorous political and social criticism of some historical events in the US during 1960s such as the Cold War and Communism, television and American Culture and Civil Rights Movement. “Harrison Bergeron” was published in 1961 during that time several events were happening around the world in general and in the US in specific which was engaged in a series of political and economic crisis with the communist Soviet Union know as The

Read More
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
235 Words | 1 Pages

Utopias are not good for everyone. Everyone likes different things, which means Utopias are only good for one person. One person might like one thing, but someone else might think differently. In a Utopia people are forced into doing something they do not want to do. Everyone likes different things.

Read More
165 Words | 1 Pages

Equality is a great idea that we should strive for and achieve; however, being made equal physically and mentally by the government could be very unfair. People should still have characteristics that make us different. One can be diverse but still equal to his neighbor. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s use of point of view, conflict, and imagery in his short story “Harrison Bergeron,” illustrates how difficult living in a world where everyone is the same would be.

Read More
940 Words | 4 Pages

Most authors, when writing futuristic stories, tend to have technological advances like flying cars or robots to add that flare. However, in the story “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut there is nothing of the sort. In the year 2081, the US government has tried to reach full equality by using handicaps on the gifted. The society’s rules leave more people with pain and anger rather than a sense of total equality with each other. Which leads some readers to wonder what a society where the ungifted were lifted up instead of the gifted put down would be like in comparison with Vonneguts.

Read More
1344 Words | 6 Pages

The definition of a hero has evolved over time. According to Merriam Webster Online Dictionary, the first definition of a hero is, “a mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent endowed with great strength or ability.” In The Odyssey, written by Homer, Odysseus is a hero according to this definition. Odysseus is a hero because he used his strength to overcome tough circumstances. Odysseus battles many mortals, immortals, monsters, and even gods.

Read More
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
1020 Words | 5 Pages

Analysis Essay on “Harrison Bergeron” The author of “Harrison Bergeron” is Kurt Vonnegut. He was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on November 11, 1922. Vonnegut is well known for his satirical literary style, as well as the science-fiction elements in much of his work. He first published “Harrison Bergeron” in October 1961.

Read More
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
302 Words | 2 Pages

In “Harrison Bergeron”, each person was not truly equal. For example, the ballerinas in the story were prettier than the maximum people, so they were required to wear masks. Hazel, the mother of Harrison, believed that the ballerinas were beautiful since her mask was extremely ugly. Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicap General, forces them to be like the public and will punish anyone who says different. Consequently a few people enjoy being the same, it is not easy, and following the Handicap General’s rules is challenging.

Read More
557 Words | 3 Pages

In his short story Harrison Bergeron, Kurt Vonnegut uses an astounding amount of powerful imagery and diction to create the perfect scenes of the dystopian reality he creates. Throughout his use of imagery, Vonnegut creates scenes palpably imagined by readers. He uses underlying humor to lighten scenes of the morbid and macabre nature of the future where being different can be a death sentence. The future that is created in totality by Vonnegut is a dire scene created to be filled with a pastiche of people strung with handicaps to make them to be exactly the same as the “perfectly average citizen.” Vonnegut’s tone throughout is both dreary towards the bizarre and twisted dystopia that makes everyone equal, but is also somewhat insulting to those who do not bear handicaps due to being lacking both mentally and physically.

Read More
1055 Words | 5 Pages

In Kurt Vonnegut’s short story, “Harrison Bergeron”, he explores this equality idea in a in 2081 setting where every man, woman, and child are on the same level of intelligence. Although in Kurt Vonnegut’s story the government is appearing to want equality, in all reality they really just want power and control. To begin the Harrison Bergeron story, George and Hazel Bergeron’s son Harrison is taken away to be put in prison. Following this, they live in a society where “nobody was smarter than anybody else”(Vonnegut 1387), everyone is forced to wear head capps and follow the governments every rule.

Read More

More about Utopian Society In Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron

Related Topics

Open Document