...The 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...
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...Worlds. But science fiction is also seen in short stories."Old Glory" is a dystopian short story about a future United States. Unlike in The Hunger Games, the narrator does not feel like the setting is dystopian. In the future United States, people cannot say anything they want. If they speak out, they are killed. "Harrison Bergeron" is also dystopian and is a society where everyone must be equal. While reading the story, readers find out that equality in fact is not always right if used...
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...Harrison Bergeron Fairness and equality is what mankind strives for in a society, and it is what mankind is going to strive over the course of an eternity. For the longest time we’ve searched for a Utopian society, and in the short story “Harrison Bergeron” written by Kurt Vonnegut in 1961, mankind needs to look no further. Total equality, everyone is equal in Harrison Bergeron, which creates a utopian society in theory. But does total equality create a utopian society? The setting of the story shows the dull and dystopian society George and Hazel are living in. “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…” The quote indicates the setting, a setting where equality has been forced and isn’t naturally caused equality. The dystopian society is also perfectly depicted in the following quote: “And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear.” The quote shows that the society puts limitations on individuals to create equality, which is not utopian at all. The story takes place in George and Hazel’s living room, which isn’t described in anyway, which is weird if you think about the time the story takes place. In many other Sci-fi stories the environment and locations are wildly described, but not in Harrison Bergeron. The reason for this could be the fact that, George and Hazel’s living room could be anyone’s living room. It could be my living...
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...“Harrison Bergeron” Kurt Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1922, and ten years later The Great Depression began. In this time, Vonnegut had to adapt to living in impoverished conditions because of his father’s lack of financial means. The Great Depression was a crucial period in his childhood development; Vonnegut’s literary pieces are a reflection of what he observed the world to be through his own life experiences. The majority of his works are science fiction used to “[help] lend form to the presentation of this world view without imposing a falsifying causality upon it (Reed),” as Peter Reed mentioned in an autobiography about Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut believed that science fiction offers a perception into an everyday society, rather than escaping it. The extraordinary events he experienced throughout his life served as motivation and influenced him to write stories about the world; as a result, Vonnegut showed an immense appreciation about life in his literary pieces. Kurt Vonnegut continued to pursue his goal of demonstrating to the world how wonderful life is through creations in the graphic arts. In 1950, Vonnegut published his first short story, “Report on the Barnhouse Effect” followed by “The Sirens of Titan” (1959), “Cat’s Cradle” (1963), “Slaughterhouse-Five” (1969), and “Breakfast of Champions” (1973). The society in which Kurt Vonnegut was a part of highly valued the ideal of equality; the short story “Harrison Bergeron” was written to foreshadow the...
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...Being Different is Unique Harrison Bergeron is a short story and a movie based on a dystopia in 2053 where the government tries to make everyone equal by giving people handicaps to make everyone the same. The message that Harrison Bergeron puts out is that being different makes people unique. The characters from the movie and short story, Harrison and Phillipa help develop the theme. Harrison is different between the short story and the movie. Harrison in the book is locked up in prison, he's tall handsome and strong and in the movie he's a school student who is smarter than everyone, and that's not good. “He was exactly seven feet tall.” scrap metal was hung all over him. Ordinarily, there was a certain symmetry, a military neatness to...
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...A Reflection on Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut Introduction Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s short story, Harrison Bergeron, is about control. The setting is based in future America, where everyone is forced to be equal. Harrison, the main character, breaks the law as the country watches on TV. The story begins by mentioning Amendments 211 through 213, making the reader aware of limitations that could potentially be placed on their freedom. In this story of perception, government agents are the deciding factor of a person’s fate and they ensure that laws are enforced. Beautiful people must wear hideous masks to make them equal to the ugly, the brilliant wear ear devices that alter their thought process and make recollection near impossible and the strong wear weighted bags to make them equal to those who are weak (Vonnegut, 1961). Forced equality is questioned by the handicapped and the outcome is a controlled society. Harrison is used to represent the people who will protest against such laws and encourage others to support his cause. The central idea is that the government could never make a perfect world by enforcing total equality but they can place limitations on people. Discussion Vonnegut uses a satirical and humorous tone while presenting a serious topic to critique America in the 1960’s, both politically and socially. The political system in the story is egalitarianism; this is the belief that all people should be treated equally in every...
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...on the 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...
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... Dr. Maria D. Salinas ENGL 1302.001 19 June 2013 Conformity amongst the Oppressed It can be said that if nobody obeys, nobody rules. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. wrote a short story titled "Harrison Bergeron" and discusses about the equality amongst the people in every way possible in the year 2081. The short story focuses on three characters: Harrison Bergeron, his parents George and Hazel Bergeron, and the United States Handicapper General Diana Moon Glampers. In the year 2081, everybody was forced to wear various types of handicaps so everyone can finally be equal amongst each other and there would not be any competition. Harrison, on the other hand, felt that he needed to overthrow the government and become the emperor of the United States. However, the attempt to overthrow progressively fails when Glampers "fired [with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun] twice, and the Emperor and [the] Empress were [killed]" (Vonnegut 221) on live television. Throughout the story, the author claims the assumption that the weights the people wear resembles what society doesn't want to see, specifically the government. The issue about the government in the year 2081 is the idea of controlling everybody's appearance and handicap them into a very bland, mediocre society to where nobody is better than anybody. In the story, everyone was required (basically forced to in any way possible) to wear some sort of handicap so nobody won’t have any advantages against each other, but more importantly...
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...The short story Harrison Bergeron was published in 1961 in the magazine Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, and was written by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. The genres this short story would fall under would be fiction, fantasy, and futuristic. The story takes place in the year of 2081 and everyone was finally equal. Nobody was smarter, better looking, stronger or quicker than anybody else. This was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments of the Constitution, and also due to the caution of agents of the United States Handicapper General. In spite of the government's attempt to make everyone equal, some things about the Amendments weren't completely right. The protagonist in this story was Harrison Bergeron, his life was different from everyone...
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...conformity? Kurt Vonnegut explores this question in his short story and uses several ironic situations to illustrate how unequal this futuristic dystopian society actually is. This homogenous world is based on false premises that by molding variations in individuals can result in conformity; however, people are born with human predispositions and differences related to body size, intellect, and beauty. This inclination of diversity makes it genetically impossible to adapt to a sterile conforming society, which exemplifies the story’s main theme. In “Harrison Bergeron”, the author, Kurt Vonnegut, uses irony to illuminate the story’s theme of society versus the individual by exhibiting the limitation of people’s freedom, deciding what morality is, and the...
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...Harrison Bergeron is a short story written about a teen boy named Harrison living in a dystopian society who uses his exceptionality to fight against the government. Later on, a film adaption was made. Both are completely different in mood and tone. Harrison Bergeron is a light-hearted satire unlike its movie adaptation, 2081. In the short story, Harrison had a clown-like and laughable appearance because he was considered above average in his looks. “...To set off his good looks, H-G men required that he wear a red ball for a nose, keep his eyebrows shaved off, and cover his even white teeth with black caps at snaggle tooth random,”(45) imagining someone to appear as this in real life is humorous and would usually make someone laugh. “He flung away his rubber nose, revealed a man that would have awed Thor, the god of thunder,”(57). He also ripped away the scrap metal on his body as if it were as “wet tissue paper,”(54) unlike in the movie where he struggled a bit to add emphasis. 2081 is...
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...help explain the plot of the story. Another example that also portrays this is “Harrison Bergeron “and the short film “2081” because they both have similarities such as the characters and they both have differences such as in the short film “2081 they never talked about beauty handicaps. When Comparing the passage “Harrison Bergeron and the short film “2081” They have different details. In the passage Harrison scares the audience with his strength by spinning the people of the orchestra and flying as stated in the passage “snatched two musicians from there, chairs waved them like batons”. This made Harrison seem like a monster. However, in the film he just threatened the audience with a bomb which was a backup broadcaster the reason they might have done that is to make Harrison die with pride by showing the whole world the guy who spoke up about the handicaps and also showing the world even his dad himself and by showing how cruel the handicapper general is. When comparing and contrasting “Harrison Bergeron “and “2081” have similarities such as the ballerina dancing with Harrison at the end. As stated in the passage “Harrison placed his big hands on the girl’s tiny waist letting her sense the weightlessness” (Vonnegut, Jr.). This quote explained them getting ready to start dancing. Another similarity would be in the short film “2081” the handicapped general killed Harrison and the ballerina it also happened in the passage “Harrison Bergeron “. As stated in the passage...
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...before the sixteenth century. One might be surprised, however, to discover that 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...
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...that complete equality is best for everyone and no one person should be better than another; Kurt Vonnegut shows that complete equality can mean more than just equal pay and equal rights he shows that every person being equal on every level is not a good thing. In the short story, “Harrison Bergeron”, Vonnegut creates a theme portraying the message that for all to...
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...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...
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