...Equality, according to Dictionary.com, is the state of being equal, especially in status, rights, and opportunities; this is what societies think is the most vital part to having a great society. The societies in Anthem and "Harrison Bergeron" thought the same way as well, but later realized that it only led to their demise. Both Ayn Rand's novella, Anthem, and Kurt Vonnegut's story, "Harrison Bergeron," focus on the theme of equality, and it is apparent that the theme reveals that being different is wrong, that people are naturally different but are forced to be equal, and that equality is a barrier from individuality, which both suggests that everyone is naturally different; therefore, making the reader know that they should embrace rather than fear their differences among others....
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...Ganelle Curry Professor Meredyth Puller English 102-12 February 27, 2013 Literary Research Paper This literary research paper is based 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...
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...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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...“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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...from one another, other than their name given. An existence based of the creation of one model and all others massed produced to replicate. Vonnegut relates America’s society and government in 2081 to today’s progressive controllability. There is so much manipulation today to over see and interact in attempt to create equality. In the short story “Harrison Bergeron”, Kurt Vonnegut mocks today and tomorrow’s society for it’s complete government empowerment, it’s gullibility towards modern media, and it’s incapability to exercise personal individuality. Vonnegut introduces the reader to George Bergeron, father of Harrison and husband to Hazel Bergeron, a family in the year 2081. Government has implemented characteristic handicaps in attempt to create equality in society. Impairments to alter ones thinking pattern interrupted with a government hearing aide placed in an intelligent individual’s ear on a continuous abrupt interruption with twenty second intervals, weights to be carried to restrain one’s physical strength, and masks to cover up one’s physical beauty creating a society where no one person stands above another. George Bergeron is described as a strong man who wears these restraints around his neck and is annoyingly un-able to complete his trans of thought due to the overwhelming noise broadcasted by the government through the earpiece. It is frightening how these impairments are accepted and allowed to be demonstrated by the government. George is well informed to the history...
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...“Harrison Bergeron” and Anthem- Similarities and Differences Two societies where everyone is finally equal. Sounds like the perfect utopia, right? These two societies were created in Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron” and in Ayn Rand’s Anthem. “Harrison Bergeron” takes place in a very strict and controlling society, while Anthem takes place in a collective society. Both stories take place in the future, after the society we know today has fallen. These societies are similar in that they both go to great lengths to make everyone equal. However, they are different because of how they are controlled. “Harrison Bergeron” and Anthem are similar because they both strive for unrealistic equality. In the very first paragraph of “Harrison Bergeron,”...
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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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...The word utopia "comes from the Greek: οὐ ("not") and topos ("place") and means "no-place", and...in standard usage, the word's meaning has narrowed and now usually describes a non-existent society that is intended to be viewed as considerably better than contemporary society." Dystopia, on the other hand, is the direct opposite of utopia, and is used to describe a utopian society after things have gone diminished. The future based short story, “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut is based on a 'utopian society' where the world is living up to the idea of America’s fourteenth amendment in which everyone is created equal. The gifted, strong, intelligent, and beautiful are forced to wear handicaps of either earphones, heavy weights, or hideous...
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...To understand a story a person must first realize the theme behind the story. The theme can be defined as the overall purpose or reason. A theme describes a central idea, thought or point of discussion that the author wishes or intends to communicate to the audience. Such a point of discussion can be presented in a literary work, song or a movie. Therefore, the theme is the message that is presented as the moral lesson in a story. Many stories were written to convey a message to their readers whether it is for entertainment purposes or educational enlightenment. (dspsweb). Themes can be used to provide the main idea or motif of a piece of work. Kate Chopin's "The Storm", Ernest Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" and Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s "Harrison Bergeron" were all reviewed for the purpose of theme. Understanding the theme behind each of these pieces is important when analyzing the author's true purpose for their piece. Kate Chopin's “The Storm" was a piece designed to show how the events in life can have profuse effects on tomorrow but if all is well when "the storm" passes, then tomorrow may continue just as today did. “So the storm passed and everyone was happy”. (Kennedy and Gioia 100). The storms that Kate spoke of served both superficial and realistic natures. The storms faced by people each and every day can be viewed through Chopin’s perspective of troubled weather. The two characters continued to confess their suppressed desires for each other and how the marriage...
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...Javier Issac Arredondo 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...
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...Modern Totalitarianism. In the 1940s through the 1960s, the world lived in a time of war. In September 1939 World War II broke out , and was followed by the Cold War of 1947 that lasted up until 1991. The historic wars of these times influenced literature and the writers of the time, as they shaped their novels and books around these events. Writers such as George Orwell and Kurt Vonnegut created novels of dystopian societies to alert nations that communism was not as great as it sounded. British writer George Orwell wrote the novel 1984 published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. in 1949. 1984 is a political novel written with the purpose of warning readers in the West of the dangers of totalitarian government. In 1949, the Cold War had not yet escalated, and many Americans supported communism as possible political systems for the west. Therefore, Orwell wrote his novel in order to expose the cruelty and oppression of communist countries. In his dystopian nation, Orwell gave a sneak peak of what a country could become if the people gave all the power to the government. In 1984, Orwell portrays the perfect totalitarian society in which the government monitors and controls every aspect of human life to the extent that having a disloyal thought is against the law. They do so with the use of technology such as tele screens and microphones across the city which allowed the government to monitor all the citizens almost all of the times. In order to keep the citizens of London...
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