Tota Total Equality In Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron

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In the story, Harrison Bergeron, it is the year 2081, and because of the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, everyone was made equal by different kinds of handicaps. If someone was too pretty, too smart, or too strong, they were made to wear handicaps so that they would be equal to others who were just “average.” One of the main themes in the short story, Harrison Bergeron, is total equality. If any of the citizens are above average in anyway, they must wear handicaps to make them equal. The only people who don’t have to wear handicaps are people who are just average and the government.
Vonnegut’s structure of total equality would never work in any way, because it debilitates the human race and stops all creativity. Kurt Vonnegut writes this story to help us realize that equality is meant to make no man or woman better than another. The major theme in this story is that equality is for rights and not for attributes like beauty, strength, and intelligence.
Individuality is considered a threat to the Handicap General. Government social control is used to collectivize and penalize anyone who is above average. This story validates the dangers of governmental control and ignorance by showing what true, total equality could lead to. Equality is the only legal standard and all individual liberty, personal responsibility, and the rule of law are eliminated. Free thought and action become impossible because the handicaps serve as a barrier from individuality. Vonnegut ridicules the fear of change and uncertainty. He suggests that this idea of total equality can be hazardous if they are portrayed too literally. Though there are many bad things that could become of total equality in the world, things like crime, hate, war, and discrimination would disappear. There can’t be things like discrimination and hate in the world if everyone was exactly the

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