...story “Harrison Bergeron” everyone is “equal”. They weren’t only equal before god and the law. They were equal every which way. All this equality was due to the 221th, 212th, and 213th Amendments of the Constitution, and to the vigilance of the United States Handicapper General. In the month of April the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron’s fourteen year-old son, Harrison away. George and Hazel couldn’t fight or disagree with the H-G men taking their son away because, they had short thoughts. Georges short of thought where due to a handicap in his ear that went off every few seconds. The H-G men and government made Harrison wear major handicaps. Harrison wore a tremendous pair of headphones, and spectacles with thick wavy lenses. Harrison’s spectacles were to make him not only half-blind but to give major headaches. Scrap metal was hung all over him. He looked like a walking junkyard. Harrison carried three hundred pounds. To offset his looks the H-G men required that he...
Words: 539 - Pages: 3
...short story “Harrison Bergeron” is about a dystopian society in the year 2084. The short story revolves around the lives of George Bergeron, his wife Hazel Bergeron, and their rebellious son, Harrison Bergeron. There are many literary lenses that one can use to interpret this short story, one in particular is the psychoanalytic lens. By reading a story through a psychoanalytic lens, a person uses the work of Sigmund Freud’s theories of psychology to interpret the text they are reading. Through the psychoanalytic lens, the reader is able to compare the characters of Harrison Bergeron to parts of a person’s personality, for example, Harrison Bergeron can be compared to the Id, George can be compared to the ego, and the Handicapper general can be compared to the Superego. The Id runs on the pleasure principle whose goal is to increase pleasure and decrease pain, like the Id, Harrison’s goal is to break free of the handicaps that he is forced to wear in order to increase the quality of his life. The Id is the basic storehouse for human’s basic needs and drives. Harrison contains such an incredibly strong drive that it causes him to make irrational decisions. One can say that Harrison even suffers from cathexis because of his obsession with rebellion. Similar to the Id, Harrison does not learn from its mistakes. When Harrison...
Words: 957 - Pages: 4
...The most noteworthy section of Harrison Bergeron is the first paragraph because the author utilizes his language to develop a theme and cleverly deliver a satire on Communism. To begin with, the noted section has the strongest writing because the writer includes extreme words to establish a recurring idea. In the first paragraph, where the readers second-handedly explore this “utopian” society for the first time, the first impressions that they get of the place are strict control and absolute sameness . Such impressions are conveyed through extreme words like “every” and “nobody”, stressing how everyone is “equal” in the community, in so creating an important theme that deals with “equality”. Therefore, the writing here is outstanding because...
Words: 320 - Pages: 2
...Literary Analysis of “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut The story “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut takes place in the year 2081 and everyone is “equal”. George and Hazel live in this society, and their 14 year old son Harrison Bergeron has just been taken away for suspicion of plotting against the government. In this society, people who are talented are given handicaps: devices which suppress their talent. George has an above average intelligence, so he wears a mental handi cap to scatter his thoughts and he also wears weights. His wife Hazel has a perfectly average intelligence and can only think in short bursts. In the beginning of the story, they are watching ballerinas on television when an announcer comes on. Although he tries very hard, can not talk so a ballerina takes over for him. She announces that Harrison Bergeron, 14 years old and 7 feet tall, has just escaped from jail and overcome his handicaps: he is a genius, an athlete, and incredibly dangerous. Shortly after she finishes speaking, Harrison bursts into the studio and announces that he is now the Emperor and the first ballerina to rise will be his Empress. One ballerina rises and becomes the empress; Harrison rips off her handicaps and does the same to the musicians. He tells them to play music and he and the ballerina dance. They neutralize gravity and kiss the ceiling. Then Diana Moon Glampers, the handicapper...
Words: 1360 - Pages: 6
...stories are still being written in today’s societies that follow the elements of Aristotelian theory. One story written in relatively recent history is that of "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. which in many aspects, can be considered a Aristotelian tragedy. Aristotle described a tragedy as a story that consisted of a tragic hero and a plot that would generate fear and pity in its audience. In this story, fourteen-year-old Harrison Bergeron valiantly attempts to break free from an equality-based society, but is quickly denied by the authoritative force of the government. The most important element in Aristotelian tragedy is the plot of a story. Aristotle states in Poetics that a story must consist of a beginning, middle, and end (Aristotle, 7). "Harrison Bergeron" fits this description very well because the beginning, middle, and end can be clearly identified while reading the story. The story opens by giving a description of what the society people live in is like. "THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way" (1). By reading this description of what life was like, one gets the idea that people lived in a totalitarian-based society. As the story progresses, the reader is introduced to Hazel and George Bergeron, who are watching a ballet program on their television when a special news bulletin...
Words: 1178 - Pages: 5
...Literary Analysis The short story, Harrison Bergeron, was written by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. In the story, we see many uses of different literary devices that help us understand the world they are living in. Similes introduce us to the loud, distracting sounds that go off in George’s head every time he is about to take advantage of his brain. The handicaps that certain people are chosen to wear symbolize their strength, intelligence, and beauty. Vonnegut uses allusions to reference a Greek god and the Constitution. I chose this story because I was fascinated by this world where everyone was “equal” and by Harrison’s fearlessness in challenging the laws and his desire to be free. In Harrison Bergeron, many similes are used to describe the sounds that block George from thinking too much. When Hazel, George’s wife, asked what the transmitter had sounded like, he responded, “sounded like somebody hitting a milk bottle with a ball peen hammer.” At times when George remembers his son, Harrison, sounds “like a twenty-one-gun salute in his head,” will interrupt his train of thought. These sounds are used so nobody is smarter than anybody else. Some people in this story can’t even use their real voice because it would be unfair. When a ballerina spoke, “Her voice was a warm, luminous, timeless melody,” but she was immediately forced to apologize and use a voice that was uncompetitive. Vonnegut used a metaphor to compare the beauty in the ballerina’s voice to a melody. In Harrison Bergeron...
Words: 612 - Pages: 3
...Literary Analysis collection 1 In the stories Harrison Bergeron, Liberty, and The Most Dangerous Game they face many conflicts. These stories all are dealing with different situations but all have similar in different. Here’s how the stories compare and contrast. A difference between the stories is the character actions in the stories. In Harrison Bergeron it takes place in 2081. The two main characters are George and Hazel they have two different levels of intelligence and George has a handicap so it limits his train of thought. I’m comparing this to Liberty because they have to listen to Mister Victor cause without him something could happen to the girl’s family. The difference in the story is the location and the year they are in Harrison Bergeron is based off the future but Liberty is...
Words: 470 - Pages: 2
...Student’s Name Professor’s Name Course Date Formalism The formalist movement heralded by the Russian Formalist movement and supported by the American New Criticism signaled the beginning of a new era in literary criticism (Rivkin and Ryan 1). Prior to the movement, literature was studied in a manner that was concerned with everything but the language used. However, the formalist movement chose to deviate from the norm. Formalism is concerned with the language used in literature only; the form of the literary piece (Rivkin and Ryan 1). For the formalists, literature is not perceived as a window to the world, but rather as something with specifically literary characteristics. Formalists did not agree with the conventional perceptions that were used to mark a piece of literature as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ (Purdue University). Formalism asserts that each work of literature has particular intrinsic features in the text and specifically looks at these literary qualities in the text. Prior to the formalist movement, literature has studied a means of gaining understanding about the world. Literature was studied in its historical context, philosophical and social implications of literature were considered in the study of literature. However, formalism abandons all these notions and looks at literature independent of the historical and social context but as an independent body of work. The main point of formalism is to put each work in its unique place, free from attachment or comparison to its...
Words: 1469 - Pages: 6
...Harrison Bergeron Analysis Harrison Bergeron is a short story written by Kurt Vonnegut. The story is a about the society in America in 2081, a man called George and his wife, Hazel, and the way the society is controlling people, so they can fit into what the government call “average”, and thereby achieve the goal of being ‘equal’. In today’s society everybody strikes to be the best, better looking and smarter than anybody else, and therefore the thought about living in a society where everyone is equal might sound tempting, if you find the race of being the best tiring. A lot of the things that most young people are struggling with right now might disappear. No more jealousy and at best no more war. There is often created a dystopian world, when humans are trying to make it a utopian one. The story about Harrison Bergeron concerns this issue. Everybody is equal, which might sound like a utopian world but in fact is a dystopian society to be living in. “The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the Law. They were equal in every which way. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else” The meaning of the word ‘equal’ has been taking to a whole new level and it is supposed to be making the society a better place, but in fact the thing it is doing, is controlling the citizens and taking away their freedom of thought, intellectual ability and their individual beauty and strength. An...
Words: 993 - Pages: 4
...book Welcome to the Monkey House: A Collection of Short Works by Kurt Vonnegut. Welcome to the Monkey House: A Collection of Short Works consists of 25 short stories most of which had previously appeared in magazines such as The Atlantic Monthly, Ladies Home Journal, Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, Collier’s Magazine, Saturday Evening Post, The New York Times, Esquire, Venture, and Cosmopolitan. The title story appeared in Playboy magazine the same year the collection was released. Eleven of the stories were reprinted from Vonnegut’s 1961 short story collection Canary in a Cat House (Vonnegut). This paper will focus on four futuristic science fiction stories from the collection. These stories, “Welcome to the Monkey House”, “Harrison Bergeron”, “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow”, and “Unready to Wear” all share a dystopian science fiction theme. Science and technology are supposed to make the world a better place, but instead, Vonnegut concludes they only create a new set of problems (Farrell, “Science and Technology in the Works of Kurt Vonnegut”). Television is often a target of satire in much of his fiction from the 1950’s. He describes it as desensitizing and numbing while deceiving the masses (Werlock). Vonnegut uses satire and pessimism throughout these dystopian stories. Satire is a special form of literature that seeks to uncover ridiculous ideas and customs in a society (Mowery). Each story portrays a totalitarian government that proposes an irrational solution...
Words: 3597 - Pages: 15
...8/3/12 Harrison Bergeron HARRISON BERGERON by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General. Some things about living still weren't quite right, though. April for instance, still drove people crazy by not being springtime. And it was in that clammy month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron's fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away. It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn't think about it very hard. Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn't think about anything except in short bursts. 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 at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains. George and Hazel were watching television. There were tears on Hazel's cheeks, but she'd forgotten for the moment what they were about. On the television screen were ballerinas. A...
Words: 2297 - Pages: 10
...to an equitable society. However, in the story “Harrison Bergeron,” Kurt Vonnegut demonstrates to us that enforcing equality in our lives won’t be beneficial. In Vonnegut’s narrative, he enhances his story by including symbolism and imagery to exhibit the contrast between the reality of equality and equity in a society. As an illustration of this idea, Vonnegut includes a large amount of imagery to display...
Words: 767 - Pages: 4
...Just about everyone in this world has always wished that things were more equal between people. Imagine if you actually lived in a world that was equal in every aspect. We can see what is like in the story “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut. He opens with a very telling sentence “The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal”. (Jr.). In this year 2081 their culture values equality so much that everyone is equal in every way. For instance when Hazel suggests that George remove the forty seven pound handicap he replies “If I tried to get away with it….then other people would get away with it…and pretty soon we’d be right back to the dark ages again, with everybody competing against everybody else”. (Jr.) In this world of “Harrison Bergeron”,...
Words: 794 - Pages: 4
...In the story Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. , it is 64 years in the future year 2081, and the government is in complete control. Instead of embracing everyone's talents and unique traits they make those talents and traits unusable by giving everyone “handicaps”. These “handicaps” are form basically a form of torture and if you rebel they will punish you, badly. Although it is not equal for everyone, anyone with power does not have any handicaps. The author uses techniques such as parallel structure and sentence fragments. Some effects of these techniques are pacing and fluency, emphasis, and exaggeration. The first technique the author used is parallel structure. A great example of this technique is, “Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else” (1). This technique causes effects like emphasis on the point Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is trying to make about equality among people. This technique also causes exaggeration about the equality in the society they are living in. As a result the reader understands that everyone is “equal” in all aspects. Theses aspects include intelligence, beauty, and strength. These effects show the reader...
Words: 632 - Pages: 3
...Today people are doing amazing things and are very talented, but what would happen if the world was all equal and the same. I am reading the book Harrison Bergeron, Kurt Vonnegut explains in the story that no one is different, everyone is the same and ordinary. There is this one person, Harrison Bergeron, He tries to rebel against the government for making people ordinary. My family and Harrison’s family share lots of similarities and differences about communication, talents, speaking their minds. In the book, George and Harrison doesn't communicate that much because Harrison is locked up in prison. My family on the other hand; communicates with each other on everything. If one needs help, we help each other. When one falls to the ground,...
Words: 294 - Pages: 2
