Equality In Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron

"All men are created equal" since the U.S. Declaration of Independence in 1776, the country is chasing the idea of equality. In the short story Harrison Bergeron, author Kurt Vonnegut discuss about the effect equality to imaginary future society. Set in 2084 when all the human are finally equal in every where. Government use device like noisy earphone or heavy balls to force people equal, Harrison- the son of the Bergeron family was born with many advantages. In story the author Kurt Vonnegut use conflict, irony and setting in his lines to emphasize the point which equality in every way will harm the society, culture and the people.

Author describe the setting and background of the story in beginning, people have to wear device that make them

suffer to create equal between different individuals. In this world, everyone that have intelligence advantage require to wear little mental handicap in their ear that make them equal: “It was tuned to a government transmitter, every twenty second or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking Advantage of their brain.” (Vonnegut 1) The government set up a average of intelligent to make everybody equal, people like harrison’s dad-George was suffer hearing noise every twenty second to distract their mind. But Harrison’s mother do not have to wear it because her memory only last for a short period of time and she is a average. Another way government make better individual suffer to create equality it to padlock heavy balls around strong people’s neck. “ Two year of prison and two thousand dollars fine for every ball I took out.” (Vonnegut 4)Not only the device harm advantage people, Vonnegut even add laws in this world to make this society more distorted by equality. Not only people who are strong have to suffer the heavy ball around their neck, if they took the ball off, it’s against the law. People who are strong will suffer in jail if they refuse to suffer in life. Therefore, to create equality, the government do use a lot of bad way to harm people.

The story mainly tell use about a 14 years boy Harrison Bergeron who try to overthrow the government but got shoot at the end, the conflict between Harrison and the government is another aspect of how equality harm society author want to show us. Harrison want to break rule of equality by making beautiful music, because no one suppose to be better than anyone, so the music in concert is force to be horrible. “ The music began, It was normal at first-cheap, silly, false. But Harrison snatched two musician from their chairs, wave them like batons as he sang the music as he wanted it played. He slammed them back into their chairs. The music began and was much better.” Government force musician to play cheap music so they are not better than others, but Harrison knows that it is not what music suppose to have. So he did against the government and make musician play music that is much better. Even things like music which is for amusing public, government made them cheap and meaningless for equality. Even they are brave and created the beautiful music and dance on tv, the revolution did not successed. “It was then that Diana moon glampers, the handicapper general. Came into the studio with a double barreled ten gauge shotgun. She fired twice, and the emperor and the empress were dead before they hit the floor.”(Vonnegut 6)The handicap general herself take the “double barreled ten gauge shotgun” which it’s a extremely powerful weapon to kill to teenager who is making beautiful music and dance on tv. The country do not care about single individuals benefit but the equality of country as a whole. It treated person who disobey the law with extreme punishment, this is not a country for equality but a country for monarch. Thus, through the conflict between Harrison and government, it is easy to get the conclusion that this kind of government is a monarch and it’s bad for society.

To shows more about the people in this kind of equal society, the author Vonnegut use many irony to describe the ignorance of people who is “equal”.

To make everything equal, government make people like broadcaster can’t even read the news. “It wasn’t clear at first as to what the bulletin was about, since the announcer, like all announcer, had a serious speech impediment. For about half a minute, and in a state of high excitement, the announcer tried to say, “ladies and gentlemen.”(Vonnegut 3) People have their job because they are good at it, but in the world of equality, no one suppose to be better than anyone, so they choose the opposite , like appointing people who have speech impediment to broadcast. It's an irony to the society and government who misunderstand the meaning of equality. Average level for the country is set to be really low, people like Harrison’s mother can’t even remember things just happened. “‘ you been crying’ he said to Hazel. ‘Yup’ she said. ‘What about?’ He said. ‘I forget,’ she said. ‘Something really sad on television.’ ‘What was it?’ He said. ‘ it's all kind of mixed up in my mind,’ said hazel. ‘ forget sad things’ said George. ‘ I always do,’ said Hazel.” It’s a part of conversation between George and Hazel. Hazel just saw her son dead on TV but after a few second, she can’t remember it after George told her to forget sad things. It was probably the best reason government believe people like Hazel is the best for average, because they always forget what's sad, what’s unfair for people and society. It’s such a irony that mother doesn’t even care and forgot about her son’s death because the government think it is the right way of living. All in all, the irony in this story really impress people’s idea about equality will distort people and

society.

To put it into a nutshell, the author Vonnegut Kurt use his description of a future imaginary society to emphize the point which equality in every way will harm the society, culture and the people. Through the setting, conflict and irony he use, we can understand how author worry about the world if people over peruse the equality. Equality is a heated discussion in recent 100years, people had all kinds of movement for equality amount people. But however we should remember the important of individual character in society. It is the character we are make us valuable and worth living, the author probably also want to tell human race in future never make the mistake the government made in the story.