Analysis Of All Summer In A Day By Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, [society is a] community, nation, or broad grouping of people having common traditions, institutions, and collective activities and interests (Society def. 3). For one to feel supported and content, they must be admitted into a society. This is evident in All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury and Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. It is imperative for society to be the most highly valued as should one desire happiness, then the society must accept their actions, words, and identity though it may take time, and a society's consensus produces peace.
In All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury, Margot isolates herself from her peers because she does not accept their society’s opinions of the sun. The children welcome all those who conform to their ideals of their naive society, yet Margot distinguishes herself as a pariah and distances herself from her peers. William and his peers scorn Margot which brings upon her loneliness and unhappiness. An example of this is, “They edged away from her, they would not look at her. She felt them go away… And then, of course, the biggest crime of all was that

she had come here only a few years ago from Earth, and she remembered the sun and the way the sun was and the sky was when she was four in Ohio. And they, they had been on Venus all their lives; and they had been only two years old when last the sun came out and had long since forgotten the color and heat of it and the way it really was. But Margot remembered. 'It's like a penny,' she said once, eyes closed. 'No, it's not!' the children cried" (Bradbury 2). If Margot had simply waited until the children could experience the sun and realize her description was accurate, then she would not have barred herself from experiencing the two-hours of sunlight. For a girl who remembered the sun and its beauty to be denied the sight of it, Margot was forced to undergo a punishment worse than bullying: facing another seven years of the same dreary rain storms without a recent, more reliable vision of the sun to keep her spirits up. And all because she could not wait for her classmates to see the sun rather than disregarding her description of it. William and his peers can only recall bits and pieces of the light and coloring of the sun; Margot challenges their ideals so they react to the best their nine-years-old-selves know how to: rejection. Happiness is a byproduct of acceptance by a society; sorrow is a byproduct of repudiation.
Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

concludes with a dismal event: Harrison and his “empress” ballerina being shot. They chose not to follow the laws instituted by their society and so were punished. Harrison’s mother, Hazel Bergeron, follows the equality rules and is satisfied with her average-intelligence life. Hazel reaps the benefits of being a conformist in her society: an average-intelligence, content life with a considerate husband and “having no mental handicap herself” (Vonnegut 1). For those who possess an unfair above-average-intelligence or physical trait, there are gadgets called “handicaps” which demote them to the same normalcy of everyone else. Technology in “Harrison Bergeron” is a patron to the peace. By regulating and curing divergent qualities, people are revolutionizing into a pacifist community. Vonnegut

writes:
“Why don’t you stretch out on the sofa…” She was referring to the forty-seven pounds of birdshot in a canvas bag… “Go on and rest the bag for a while,’ she said. ‘I don’t care if you’re not equal to me for a while.”
George weighed the bag with his hands. ‘I don’t mind it...it’s just a part of me.”
“You [have] been so tired lately-kind of worn out.” said Hazel. “If there was just some way we could make a little whole in the bottom of the bag, and just take out a few of them lead balls…”
“If we tried to get away with it,” said George, “then other people’d 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?”
“I’d hate it,” said Hazel. (2)
This excerpt demonstrates how George Bergeron, though it appears he is suffering, is obsequious to comply and wear the handicaps. He realizes it is for the greater good and knows not to cut corners because it would not make him equal with everyone, and possibly affect a trend which could tear apart the peace in his society. A pact constituted by George and Hazel’s society is to wear these handicaps so everyone is equal; this procures placidity and concord.
It is imperative for society to be the most highly valued as should one want happiness, then the society must accept their identity though it may take time, and peace hails from a concurrence achieved by the society. Both All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury and Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut Jr support these concepts. While society must the most highly valued, there are bumptious people who nevertheless defend individuality, yet clamor for serenity. But there is no peace in anarchy, and individuality promises desolation. From the deepest roots of society flows prosperity. Society: by no means a generalization about average intelligence or ignorant beliefs, but a halcyon community which one identifies residence in to express gratification from feeling welcomed.