Analysis Of Kurt Vonnegut's Writing Style

Many times it is easy for a reader to identify the specific writing style of a piece, but people rarely analyze how the style is communicated. Style can be communicated through tactics such as juxtaposition. The use of this tactic propels the author’s writing style and many times reveals an underlying message that the writer is attempting to convey to their audience. In Harrison Bergeron Kurt Vonnegut concerns himself with the issue of the destruction of free speech rights by the equal rights movement in the 1950’s and early 1960’s and communicates his feelings toward the issue through a satirical writing style and juxtaposition.

Kurt Vonnegut was a science fiction writer during the 1950’s and 1960’s who used a satirical writing style when

His writing style is communicated by contrasting ordinary apathetic language with language that creates an atmosphere of suppression and confusion. As George and Hazel discuss the performance of the dancers the language is ordinary and apathetic as George says, “Huh” followed by Hazels comment, “That dance-it was nice, “and George’s reply, “Yup.” These phrases are then juxtaposed by the loss of George’s participation in the conversation as, “noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts” which he describes as, “Sounded like somebody hitting a milk bottle with a ball peen hammer.” This juxtaposition reinforces Vonnegut’s outrage at the absurdity of taking away one’s right to free speech by contrasting the ordinary with the alarm of a shattering bottle moving the reader to feel hostility about how extremely George is treated. As George and Hazel discuss how the sounds of the ear piece could be changed they use phrases such as, “Good as anybody else” and “Who knows better than I do what normal is” which is then juxtaposed with a twenty-one gun salute in George’s earpiece and the phrase, “Boy! That was a doozy, wasn’t it?” which left George, “white and trembling.” This juxtaposition again communicates the anger that Vonnegut has toward the assault on the right to free speech and causes the reader to be infuriated by the extreme measures used to suppress