Compairison
Desperate Measures to Maintain Order
In Kurt Vonnegut’s short story, Harrison Bergeron, society has finally achieved equality. Intelligence is handicapped, beauty is masked, and competition is eliminated. The Handicapper General comes up with ways to make people equal, and strictly adheres to the modifications that she makes to keep everyone equal. The implications of an equal society are outrageous. In a world that revolves around innovations and new technology it would be absurd to have everyone on the same level of intelligence.
A couple named Hazel and George sit in their living room watching television when Hazel makes a comment to her husband about how tired her husband looks. Hazel suggests that George rest and remove that handicaps he wears because she would not mind it if her husband was not equal to her for a few minutes. Baffled by her statement, George replies, “If I tried to get away with [removing any of the handicaps], then other people’d get away with it-and pretty soon we’d be right back to the dark ages again, with everybody competing against everybody else (200).” Hazel is appalled by the thought of returning to the “dark ages” where there was competition among individuals. George believes that by removing his government imposed handicaps that somehow everything and everyone in society will be worse off. As George and Hazel sit and watch television in their home, an announcer tries his hardest to read some breaking news. It is revealed that Harrison Bergeron, Hazel and George’s son has escaped from prison and is on the loose and that he is extremely dangerous for being under handicapped.
Harrison Bergeron is a protagonist that rebels against society’s rules and expectations. Harrison stands at a looming seven feet tall, and possesses an intelligence that the government cannot come up with enough handicaps to suppress. He has broken the mold that his society has developed to maintain peace. The...
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