Critical/Analytical Essay for “Harrison Bergeron”
Austin Taylor
Language Arts 20-1 Period 4
October 18th 2011
Harrison Bergeron is a story about society going to extreme extents to have equalization across the board a possibility that was written by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. The story shows that the society amongst the globes society is not meant to be entirely equal and that we are trying too hard to attempt this concept. The handicaps featured in the story are ridiculous and very extreme consequences to even more antic things in the society considered as handicaps. Although Harrison Bergeron features pretentious conditions of handicaps, it shows very well in a metaphoric way that society has gone too far to try to make the world equivalent. While mocking these handicaps, it also mocks our society’s leaders by having a “handicap general”. This resembles how the woman leading the handicaps technology, Diana Moon Glampers, had queen like features in a communist leadership. The story mocks our civilizations equality.
There were several handicaps mentioned in the reading. Things like having to carry enormous amounts of weight amongst their body to make the people wearing the sashes of bird seeds shorter. Another example of these handicaps would be having a radio in more intelligent than “normal” people’s ears to prevent them from thinking too extravagantly by alarming them every twenty seconds with a loud and sharp noise in their ear. The radio in people’s ears in the story had shown that it tortured the people who wore these to the extent that it had brought tears to their eyes. Harrison had many extraordinary capabilities over the common civilian, and he was punished severely for having these capabilities. He was forced to wear a tremendous pair of earphones, spectacles with thick, wavy lenses that half blinded him, and gave him extreme migraines. He carried 300 pounds of different metals on his body. He was also sentenced to shave his eyebrows and wear a clown nose and black caps at random on his teeth. These handicaps made him significantly more equal to the common civilian.
Without the extraordinary people in the world’s society, we would not have extravagant discoveries, amazing arts and spectacular dances to watch and enjoy every day. If everyone was equal, the world would be in the dark ages, and it would not have advanced far in technology. Things that are frowned upon in the story, like competing with others and having certain abilities, have advanced the people we enjoy watching, competing with, and idolizing others, rather than having a very firm hierarchy with simply one level of society. Television would be next to nonexistent if everyone was equal because nobody would be entertained.
In the ending of the story, Harrison tries to rebel against the new system of handicap hierarchy and fails terribly. He was handicapped severely with all of the manmade devices designed to make him equal. He was later jailed for being superior in many senses to the average society member and exploiting his expertise in this concept. Harrison had grown sick and tired of the civilizations superiors controlling the societies. He was killed for his views later on when he had tried to overthrow the government. He stripped off his handicaps and danced publicly with a ballerina whom he had also stripped the handicaps from. This is very resembling of the old times of the world such as the reigns of terror and sometimes in extreme cases of communism and absolute power held in one person. If they had different views from what the leader had imposed upon the civilization, they were shunned and discriminated against to the fullest extents which lead to violence and death.
Generally, the moral of Harrison Bergeron is that nobody will ever be entirely equal to one another. There is no use trying to impose upon everyone that they cannot be over exceedingly equal to one another. If everyone was equal, we would lack every discovery that society has ever accomplished as a whole. It is not that we are trying to be equal as much in a sense that some are trying to be superior as a whole compared to other nations and civilizations. We should only be equal in the sense of safety and common rights such as the rights. Examples would be things like being able to speak their own language and openly practice religious ceremonies. A great example would be the First Nations peoples having their original ways still practiced today. They have practiced these ways for centuries, and they remain in the land where these practices originated.