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Neuburger English Comp 102 102 27 April 2012 Single Paragraph Essay Harrison Bergeron In the story Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., the author expresses a powerful opinion of what a future American society would be like if the government was based on strict communist principles, where wealth and power should be evenly distributed and no one class is better than another. Vonnegut said in the story, They were all equal in every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody elsebetter lookingstronger or quicker than anybody else. (293). The agents of the Handicapper General have managed to make everyone follow their laws by making them wear a device in their ear that brings them to below-average in intelligence, strength, and ability. Vonnegut writes, He was required to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so the transmitter would send out a sharp noise to keep peoplefrom taking unfair advantage of their brains. (294). Vonneguts story not only talks about how being smart is frowned upon and actively discouraged, but he also talks about the dangers of equality that are enforced by the government to the point where it literally runs the lives of the American household. Word Count: 195

Works Cited Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Harrison Bergeron. Power of Language Language of Power. New York: Pearson Learning Solutions, 2009 293-299. Print.