Harrison Bergeron Essay

Is society today leading us, the people in the wrong direction from where we started at? Are the values, priorities, ideas and morals that are held by todays society not what they should be? Is the Government controlling the people to the point where they have no power? Kurt Vonnegut in his short story Harrison Bergeron is attempting to send a message to us as a society. He believes that we are already far along the tracks of heading into a downfall as a society. He thinks that if we keep treating everyone so fairly to the point where there is no competition and everyone is exactly the same then as a society how will we have the ability to progress and prosper. He also believes that one person may fight for what they believe in, like Harrison, but if they get no help and everyone watches from the sideline that person will achieve nothing. He accentuates that the people must unite as one to get the change they believe is right.

Kurt Vonnegut develops a society in his story Harrison Bergeron that has mostly the same beliefs that today's society holds.

The only difference is in Harrison Bergeron the government and society has taken these beliefs to the extremes. An environment is developed in Harrison Bergeron were all people of society are equal in ability and intelligence aspects. Natural talents and abilities are handicapped so that there is no one person with a greater ability than another. The society developed by Kurt Vonnegut takes equality in a very literal sense to the point where everyone has no differences and can achieve no more than what the average person would achieve. The government is obsessed with keeping power over the people in this story to the point where it becomes communistic. That is an explanation for why when any type of eruption of rebellious actions like Harrison commits, is shut down immediately by the

government.

Kurt Vonnegut is sending a message to us as a society through his characters. He is implying that If we continue with the path that we are on today we will end up in some sort of predicament like his story. He is trying to get the message across that we can't just sit around and do nothing like his characters George and Hazel. He wants us to see that we all need to unite if we want to make a change in society before its too late. If just one person like Harrison stands up for what he knows is right and what he believes in then nothing can be accomplished the people must work together if they want to reach a common goal. He is also sending a message that equality within every aspect will achieve nothing. He shows us this through the characters and many scenes. For instance in his story everyone wants everything to be fair there is no competition so nothing is accomplished by the people because they are all average. The only time anything is to be accomplished is by the government who has power and talents over everybody due to the fact that they don't handicap themselves.

In the short story the television has a major impact on what the characters believe. Whoever runs the broadcasts has a large power over the people in the stories case it is the government. Vonnegut uses this to symbolize in today's society how media is the basis of what all people believe. He is attempting to show the sheer power of the media. He wants people to know that not everything they see is true. He is extremely right media has power over everybody.

In this short story Kurt Vonnegut develops a society where the government controls all the people and every single person is equal to the point where they are average in every aspect including natural abilities and intelligence. Vonnegut is sending a message through his story that progress and prosperity will not come with exact equality. He also is implying that the people must work together if they want to reach a common goal against a stronger power.