Kortick1

Joseph Kortick

Field

LNG322

2/15/11

Equality the Good, Bad, and Ugly

Living in a world where everyone is the same can make a person go crazy. Vonnegut’s

“Harrison Bergeron”, Rand’s Anthem, and Nicol’s Gataca, these stories were all created to show

such a collective society. Vonnegut’s, Nicol, and Rand stories have characters which live in

worlds where they are forced to be equal to each other, and in Gataca if they are not born equal,

they cannot do the same things as others. These characters have to overcome their society’s flaws

and achieve their greatest potential in order to make a better society.

In Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron” create people are equal to each other, and if you were

not born equal, you were handicapped. This means that they put weights to slow you down, or

earphones to scramble your thoughts, and if you take the handicaps off, you will be severely

punished. A ballerina on T.V. has to wear a mask and a heavy bag to make her the same as the

worst dancer. This is not fair at all, she should be able to do the best she can, but the society

prevents her from this. When suddenly a boy comes on the screen, he is age fourteen and seven

feet tall. He has more handicaps than anyone has ever seen. Then suddenly he starts ripping them

off, and tells the others around him to do the same. That ballerina takes hers off and they dance.

It was gracious and spectacular as if they were floating. This made them not equal to the rest, and

according to this society it was wrong. When all of a sudden the general came in and shot them
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both dead, just for being different. They stood out and that is something that he felt worth dying

for. The way that they interpreted it at home, the viewers of this dreadful act at which two young

humans were killed must have differed some cried, and some cheered. Now do you think that is

right?

In Rand’s Anthem he creates a society in which there is no family, no friends, and

no emotions, where everyone lives for their brothers and not for themselves. In Anthem people

are not allowed to think for themselves, they get punished for this evil deed. When the main

character finds a place where he can be alone and think alone. He uses this to study and learn

more about the world which he lives in. He invents electricity, but the council will not take in

this power which he has created for he did this without his brothers’ content. There are no

families in the story either. When it is time to mate people go to a palace of mating, and are

randomly matched with one another to have children. They do not meet the children which they

have given birth to, these infants are sent away to a home of students to learn. In this home of

students the teacher’s brain-wash the kids and turn them into “robots,” that do not think or do

anything for themselves. The citizens in the story use the word “we” for “I” because they do

everything as a hole and never would think to pleasure oneself in any way. You eat the same

time, wakeup the same time, and sleep at the same time, all by a bell that tells them when to do

these things. They have long workdays, and poor healthcare, people hardly make it past forty

years of age. When they do hit forty they are sent to the home of the useless to die. When you do

think for yourself as one character did in the story, he said, “I” and they burned him on a stake.

This was the Saint of Pyre. If you think that everyone is equal to one another and that this can

work it can’t. Having everyone thinks the same and do everything to same, would have someone

to rebel and find the truth and bring down the whole society with it.
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In Nicol’s Gataca, people are born with genes that make them genetically superior to one

another these genetically lower class people, are called faith births. Faith births are born from

love other than by doctors finding the best genes in the parents. When Vincent is born he is born

with high chance of heart disease, and the doctors say he will have a hard time making it past

thirty. Then Vincent’s parents have another son who is born with scientific help, they create a

brother who is much superior to Vincent, his name is Anton, a son who could take his father’s

name and make him proud. Vincent wanting to be an astronaut cannot be one because no one

will hire him because of his genes. So Vincent takes on a new identity of a man named Gerome

who supplies him with urine, blood, and fingerprints, to help him pass all sorts of tests. Gerome a

superior human-being allows him to become an astronaut.