Revolutionary Opinions

Many people don’t agree with what society has to offer. People love having the freedom to do what they want without having distractions of being in uncomfortable place or other people telling them what to do. The literary works "Harrison Bergeron" and "London” are similar because they exemplify societies that are ruined due to how the people in power govern and how it affects the speaker’s surroundings. In Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s short story “Harrison Bergeron,” the main character “Harrison” dies from breaking the law and broke out of jail in a rebellious way to overthrow the government and become emperor. Furthermore, in William Blake’s poem “London,” the speaker describes the setting in a dark and negative tone conveying to the reader that he is dissatisfied with the city itself. Both literary works use the concept of individual verse society in similar ways.

In Vonnegut Jr.’s short story “Harrison Bergeron,” the reader immediately comes to find out that society is now controlled by to government making everybody equal when the speaker states “The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal” (Vonnegut Jr. 231). In the story, society is now equal and the law mandates that people must wear objects called “Handicaps” at all time to ensure equality. Harrison, on another note, wanted to be free from such horrific law and wanted to be different from others. Harrison’s plan was to over throw the government the reader finds this out when the ballerina announces “He just escaped from jail, where he was held on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government” (43). This is an example of Individual verse society since the speaker now has a conflict between society and himself by choosing not to obey the law. The concept of individual vers...

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... a lack of good governance. Both literary works have similar ideas toward individual versus society because both speakers of the works are dissatisfied with their government and the community they are supposed to be part of. In the end both speakers of the literary works were able to show their dissatisfaction of the society by trying not to seem part of the government establishments they were disappointed, they did this by describing their revolutionary opinion politically and vividly.

Work Cited

1. Blake, William “London.” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama,

Writing .X.J. Kennedy & Dana Gioia 12th ed. New Jersey: Pearson 2013.

741. Print

2. Vonnegut Jr., Kurt “Harrison Bergeron” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, Writing .X.J. Kennedy & Dana Gioia 12th ed. New Jersey: Pearson 2013.

231. Print