SHORT STORY PROJECT

Harrison Bergeron

Five of my thoughts about this short story:

- The short story is very thought-provoking and well-know. It is studied in a lot of

classes, like ours, around the world because of it’s creativity around the idea of
equality in the future. It really puts your mind to work because it doesn’t portray a
very happy future so it let’s you think about the concept of being equal.
For example: "The year was 2081, and everyone was finally equal. They weren't
only equal in their laws and their courts, and their schools, but they were equal in
their every endeavour. They were all made equal by the United States Handicapper
General." Just this quote already makes you think about the concept of being equal,
and if equal also means fair.
- ‘Harrison Bergeron’ can be interpreted as critique on socialism in the society.
Everyone has handicaps been given by the government to be ‘equal’. But a lot of
people believe that this takes away the freedom and individuality of a person. This
can be seen as government oppression and the construct of socialism. For
illustration, people with above average beauty or intelligence or forced to wear
handicaps so they all become equal. This can be seen as critique on the socialism
ideologies that seek to create a more equal society trough government control.
- Vonnegut’s uses very dark humour in his short story to emphasis the danger and
absurdness of such a society. Just one example of this humour is that George is
defending the government and society that makes him wear a handicap and cripples
his mind. These are George’s words: "If I tried to get away with it," said George,
"then other people would get away with it-and pretty soon we'd be right back to the
dark ages again, with everybody competing against everybody else. You wouldn't
like that, would you?"
- One thing that bothered me in ‘Harrison Bergeron’ is that it’s very one-sided and
oversimplifies the part about being equal. I know it’s supposed to over exaggerate to
make a point, but I found it was a little too much. I would’ve really enjoyed to read
 about the other side of this discussion, the people who think being treated equal in
every way is fair. There isn’t really an example of this because it’s mostly my own
opinion, but one thing that you could consider an example for this point is that the
story’s main character, or at least the person who is most talked about, is Harrison.
Harrison is the face of the little ‘revolution’ and we see how he tries to explain his
point on tv by removing his handicaps and showing how beautiful people are without
them. All of this is of course the main plot of the story, but I would’ve enjoyed
another point of view, maybe from someone like the Handicapper General.
- The characters in Harrison Bergeron aren’t really fully developed personas with their
own motivations and in dept personalities. Because of this, it can be hard to form an
opinion about one character in particular. Instead, if you focus on the characters as a
whole, you can see that they have a symbolic purpose in the story.
For example: Harrison represents individuality, while his parents represent
acceptance. Lastly, The Handicapper General represents oppressive power and the
urge to control.

Short review:
To sum it all up, ‘Harrison Bergeron’ is an amazing, thought provoking story that makes you
think about the concept of being equal. A lot of people think the story criticizes the
ideologies of socialism because of the oppressive government control that the story shows
us. So even though the story addresses a heavy topic, Vonnegut uses dark humor to give it
a bitter sweet touch. The characters in the story aren’t really in dept persons with their own
motivations, but all stand for something symbolic. And despite the one-sided and over
simplified view on being equal, is ‘Harrison Bergeron’ a powerful work of dystopian work
fiction and I enjoyed reading it.