Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron
In 2081, society may advance in technology. People may finally cure cancer. However, these goals cannot be met in a dystopian society. In a world where there is oppressive societal control, no one will ever have the right to think outside of the box. Everyone will be forced into an unnaturally equal society where curing cancer is too abnormal to be accepted with open arms. Kurt Vonnegut wrote “Harrison Bergeron,” in which people are forced to wear handicap harnesses in order to diminish any differences one possesses to another. An article states, “... the sports term handicap. It refers to a way to even up a game so that good, average, and poor players can compete as equals” (What If Everyone Were The Same?). Kurt Vonnegut Jr. wrote the story with the belief that while people may think an equalized utopian American society is ideal, it resembles more of a dystopia due to its depravity in/of keeping an oppressive government pleased.
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He writes of the dark reality in hiding people’s individuality. For example, “They were burdened with sashweights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in” (Vonnegut). Using masks and handicap harnesses as concealment stresses the flaw in an ideal equal society thought of by Americans instead of a truly moral society. A principled society focuses on equal rights, and not identical appearances or talents. On the other hand, freedom is no longer a value in the story because everyone must stay within their limits to continue as “normal” like the rest of
He writes of the dark reality in hiding people’s individuality. For example, “They were burdened with sashweights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in” (Vonnegut). Using masks and handicap harnesses as concealment stresses the flaw in an ideal equal society thought of by Americans instead of a truly moral society. A principled society focuses on equal rights, and not identical appearances or talents. On the other hand, freedom is no longer a value in the story because everyone must stay within their limits to continue as “normal” like the rest of