Comparing Love In 'Harrison Bergeron And Anthem'

Wilburn 1

Sara Wilburn
Ms.Kline
Sophomore English 3rd
6 October 2017

Unfair Dystopia

There is a quote that is “All love is my love of love and love is not all loving” by David Bowie, I feel like this could relate to characters in “Harrison Bergeron” and Anthem because love is portrayed differently and the journey of discovering love could have been difficult. In “Harrison Bergeron” it was more taken in the future and the problem was trying to keep everyone equal when it came to everything. In Anthem the dystopia was trying to go back to when there was not a numerous amount of information to also keep everyone equal. “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and Anthem by Ayn Rand are both pieces of dystopian literature, their portrayal

of family differs greatly. In Anthem their dystopia differs greatly because the way children grew up was not how families did in “Harrison Bergeron” . Children did not grow up with their parents, instead they were taken from them after being born. It says “We remember the home of infants where we lived till we were five years old, together with all the children of the city who had been born in the same year.”(Rand 20). This demonstrates that the children had to live with each other instead of living with their parents. Not only that but the children had to move to a different part of the city until they met a certain age.
Love was accepted for only “brothers” but towards a significant was not a known thing and known as something that should not happen.

“Then we walked on into the forest,their hand in ours”(Rand 84) Golden one followed Equality into the forest so she could be with him instead of being at the city. After they settle in to where they live they had a baby and spoke about their love towards each other. For the story “Harrison Bergeron” things were way more different for the simple fact that family was more accepted. Having a family and loving was not a problem to do in “Harrison Bergeron”. “They remained suspended in air inches below the ceiling, and they kissed each other for a long, long time”( Vonnegut 6 ) before they were able to hit the floor they were shot because they were breaking rules of wearing handicaps and making a disturbance. George and Hazel were a married couple in this story. “George and Hazel were watching television. There were tears on Hazel’s cheeks, but she’d forgotten for the moment what they were about.” (Vonnegut 1) In this story George and Hazel both lived with each other. There was no problem with marriage, the only thing the city was concerned about was being equal and wearing the handicaps at all times if they were assigned to one

individual.
For these reasons this why I think Anthem and “Harrison Bergeron” have differences in relations to family and dystopia. Marriage and Love for Anthem was not accepted but in “Harrison Bergeron” it was accepted. This is why these are unfair dystopias.