Essay On Harrison Bergeron

Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s “Harrison Bergeron” is an eye-opening piece that touches on the idea of equality among humans in an interesting and unique way. We have seen people throughout history fight for equality, a fight that still continues on to this day. Especially here in America, it seems as though there is always some group somewhere pushing for some kind of equality whether it be racial equality, religious equality, gender equality, etc. Is it really equality that we want though? Or do we just want fairness? I think when many of us say that everyone should be equal, we are insisting that we should all be treated equally and provided with equal opportunities, not that each person should be equal in their amounts of athleticism and attractiveness.

Vonnegut, who has realized this, shows us the reality of what our world would come to if we were striving for literal equality rather than fairness. He does this using connotative diction, exaggeration, and irony. As far as his use of connotative diction, Vonnegut takes equality, something typically viewed as being a positive concept, and turns it into a negative one. Vonnegut realized that this creation of a completely equal society is the furthest thing from fair, as well as that it would be more easily achieved by tearing some people down to a certain standard rather than trying to improve people to bring them up to this standard. In “Harrison Bergeron,” this standard is met in many different ways. Those above the standard are given weights to weigh them down, ugly masks to wear, ear pieces that make thinking and functioning normally impossible to do, and whatever else it takes to make them equal to everyone else. These accessories make sure that no one is too strong, too fast, too pretty, too smart, or too much of

However, it was the “suspicion of [him] plotting to overthrow the government” that resulted in him being imprisoned though. When Harrison escaped from prison, he was described in the news broadcast as “a genius and an athlete, [who] is under-handicapped, and should be regarded as extremely dangerous” Growing up in the society that is today’s American society, this idea that people are aiming for averageness rather than excellence can seem so absurd. The fact that Harrison’s description as a “genius” and “athlete” was supposed to make people afraid of him, that Hazel’s lack of intelligence and all-around averageness is described as “perfectly average,” and that the ballerina reading the television broadcast apologizes for her voice because it was “a warm, luminous, and timeless melody” can be very difficult to grasp. “Genius” and “athlete” are words of flattery, lack of intelligence is never desired, “average” is an insult, and people on the television are supposed to be have good voices. Or so we thought. By using this negative context and this negative attitude from characters toward equality, Vonnegut successfully creates this new idea where things that we consider to be wonderful and consider to be people’s strengths today are frowned upon and deemed as flaws. Although this all seems so backward and unimaginable, in Carl Mowery’s “An Overview of ‘Harrison Bergeron,’” we are brought to the realization