Harrison Bergeron Analysis

A small glimmer of hope in an imperialistic world is only taken away in order to ensure equivalence in an imperfect society. Harrison Bergeron is a classic sociological tale written by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. that is based on the sociological aspect of everyone being equal - not one individual could be above another. This short story focuses on the idea of symbolism by using masks and handicaps to force the social norm of being the same while foreshadowing the courage of being unique in a seemingly perfect world, all while displaying irony through the way in which our society runs today. This story relates to today’s society in that both are alike in that individuals want to break free from societies constraints of social norms.

Harrison Bergeron

Just like in Harrison Bergeron, television and/ social media in today’s society has become the fastest way to receive information on what is going in the world. In Harrison Bergeron, the entire society was watching a television program of ballerinas dancing when “it was suddenly interrupted for a news bulletin” (Vonnegut). The announcer, who had a speech impediment, just like every other announcer, handed the bulletin to a ballerina to read. “The ballerina must be extraordinarily beautiful, because the mask she wore was hideous, and it was easy to see that she was the strongest and most graceful of all, for her handicap bags were as big as those worn by two-hundred pound men” (Vonnegut). In this society, the government, named the Handicap General, forces people who are beautiful and strong to wear weights and masks to suppress their talents and beauty to make their uniqueness equal to the “average person.” People are required to wear handicaps in order to get an imperialistic world completely equal; Kurt Vonnegut uses Harrison Bergeron’s character to express an ironic symbolism in the story Harrison Bergeron. He is no ordinary human in this futuristic society, as he is portrayed as “a genius and an athlete… and should be regarded as dangerous…instead of a little ear radio for a mental handicap he wore a tremendous pair of earphones…scrap metals hung all over

“The narrator of the story Harrison Bergeron definitions’ of America’s equality begins not by positing a future equality as much as exposing the misunderstanding of it in the past and the present” (Hattenhauer). The story Harrison Bergeron has two meanings: too much equality and too much inequality. Too much equality is expressed through the Handicap General, Diana Glampers, as she wants everyone to be equal because she envies the talented and beautiful. However, “it is not fair to the productive, the risk taking, or the hard working, to deprive them of what they have produced, merely to make them equal to others who have worked less, taken less risk, and produced less” (Moore). This society would never work because “no one who has lived very long can think that all men are equal in physical, prowess, mental capacity, willingness to work or save, to assume leadership, to design or invent new products or processes, to get votes, to preach sermons, to play the violin, or even to make love” (Even Fingerprints Differ). In any society one should not have the power to make people equal for each “were endowed by our creator” (Moore). In a society where there is too much inequality, or a potential dictatorship- Harrison Bergeron, society would fail as well. Kurt Vonnegut wrote Harrison Bergeron in order to show the world that we cannot take away talent or