People from different backgrounds and societal norms react differently to similar situations. What is considered acceptable and unacceptable can be defined by culture, government laws, and the accepted truth to the majority. This is very well depicted in the short stories under the science fiction genre, ‘Harrison Bergeron’ by Kurt Vonnegut and ‘The Different Ones’ by Rod Serling. The protagonists in both stories were considered outcasts in their respective society because they do not fit with what is considered as normal in their communities. However, how they were dealt with by the government were totally different due to the existence of different policies and interventions for members of the population who are considered abnormal.
Harrison
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The social stigma attached to their identities based on their unique features is highly suppressive in their opportunities of being themselves in the communities where they are. The difference lies in how these main characters projected themselves to their outside world. Harrison has a high regard for himself as someone superior over the others, even dubbing himself as the emperor who has the capacity to free others from their imposed handicaps. This young person has a highly inflated ego, reflecting a very high level of self-esteem. He harnessed his his full potential in the middle of being restricted. He found ways of overcoming the different restrictions placed upon him by the Handicapper General. On the other side, Victor sulked and shut himself from the outside world even if he was living in a free society because of other people’s overt expression how how they disdain his looks, often bullying him as ‘ugly bird-head.’ He is a bright individual but he just stayed at home with self-imposed house imprisonment unable to fully develop his potentials. Victor had a very low self-esteem, and pitied himself so much, as shown in the scene where he showed himself on the screen to the panel of the Social Uran Problems Office crying expressing how disdainful he is. Therefore, It can be deduced that Harrison achieved a certain level of self-fulfillment before he died even though his freedom was short-lived, while Victor saw himself much as a waste until he gained acceptance in planet Boreon, where the residents there look just like
“‘Two years in prison and two thousand dollars fine for every ball I took out’” wrote Vonnegut (103). This statement portraits the unjust punishment for being unhandicapped, but is this punishment better or worse than death? In the short story “Harrison Bergeron” and the movie “2081” there are many differences and similarities. One similarity is that both the short story “Harrison Bergeron” and the movie “2081” has Harrison Bergeron getting shoot. In contract with Harrison getting killed is that the short story and movie differ in the aspect on how they prove that Harrison is dead.
Harrison Bergeron is a short story that has a deep meaning to it. To begin with, the short story Harrison Bergeron was made in 1961 and is written by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. The whole short story is set in the far future of 2081. 2081 is a time where everybody is finally equal and when the government finally has full control over everyone. If you aren't equal you would have to wear handicaps to limit your extraordinary strength and smarts. As the story progresses, Harrison Bergeron is trying to send a message about society.
Harrison Bergeron is a hero to society. He is a hero because he was the only person willing to take off his handicap. Bergeron was a brave person. No one else was brave enough to try to be unique. Everyone was following what they were told to never questioning it, but Bergeron wasn't. He wants to discover new things. Yes he might have been scaring people, but they had no reason to be scared. They could have been helping and joining instead of being scared and rebelling from him.
The world is divided up into numerous things: Countries, states, cities, communities, etc. However, when looking at the big scope of things, one can group the vast amount of people into a society. This society is where the majority lie in the scheme of things - in other words, the common people. Individuals do exist in this society, but they are scarce in a world of conformism. Society’s standards demands an individual to conform, and if the individual refuses they are pushed down by society.
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s short story “Harrison Bergeron” was created during the time frame of the Civil Rights Movement and the Cold War and encompasses the definition of the word satire. Though the story itself is set in the distant future, the year 2081, one can see the influence of the past in this dark satirical portrayal of an American society. The author satirizes the very elements he was exposed to in his own environment and lifetime. Vonnegut mocks forced ideas of equality, power structures, and oppression, ideas that were prevalent and thriving in the atmosphere of his time of writing “Harrison Bergeron”.
What makes someone a threat to society, what makes someone a hero of society? Society is a way of life that a country follows. The short story "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut, takes place in an inane society where no one was allowed to be better than anyone else and individuality was oppressed. He was a pulchritude, strong boy of fourteen that could not be cultivated into the society so he resisted publicly. It cost him his life. Harrison Bergeron is a hero because he stood up for what he believed, he tried to fix what was wrong, and we can prove he is a hero by definition.
In the short story “Harrison Bergeron” and in the film 2081 Harrison and the beautiful ballerina were murdered by the Handicap General. This fact is very important to both the story and the film because Harrison’s death was the main concept of both “… 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.” Harrison was trying to show the people what the government was really like and how it’s okay to be different. The filmmaker kept this part of the story within the film because Harrison sacrificing himself to show people the reality of the government is the moral of the story.
In society, it's difficult to go against the norm. Individuals are compelled to act a specific way, or look a specific way in order to be accepted. For instance, teenagers may encounter pressure from their peers to partake in specific exercises that may not be moral, since they feel the need to fit in. This weight of conformity isn't just present in reality; it can be found in literature as well. The story "St. Lucy’s Home For Girls Raised by Wolves" by Karen Russell depicts that in order to conform to society, individuals abandon their selflessness and compassion and become selfish and apathetic.
Have you ever wondered what life would be if everyone was equal? Well, in the year 2081, the government made everyone equal with handicaps. In the story “Harrison Bergeron”, the government makes people with special talents or abilities wear handicaps. I agree with the claim,”Everyone was not truly equal in “Harrison Bergeron”. Some reasons why I believe that this statement wasn’t true is that the handicaps don’t take away your abilities, handicaps are not useful, and it is not fair for the people with abilities to wear handicaps. Everyone is truly equal in “Harrison Bergeron” because it made average people and below average people feel equal to the higher and better people.
Readers do not see a short story like that very often anymore and for good reason. The stories of people who conform are everywhere. People are everywhere, but people are individuals. They are unique yet there are people that are considered “normal” and people that are considered “the odd ones out”. But that begs the question, considered by who? By the reader, the author, society? I am getting off topic. The point is that there will always be people that are odd in some fashion because each person has their own perspective on what is normal. Many
Imagine living in a world where everyone is the same. The same physical features, the same intellectual status; Life would be awful. The year is 2081, and amendments 211 through 213 of the Constitution are added, forcing everyone to be equal, which ultimately means no one is uglier, slower, or weaker than anyone else. To make sure that everyone is equal, the government issues out handicappers to anyone who might be considered a threat or intimidation to society. The handicapper General and a group of city agents ensure that all the laws are enforced, and everyone keeps their handicappers on. My senior class studied a short story by Kurt Vonnegut named Harrison Bergeron, which I described earlier in my essay. Harrison, the protagonist of the story, stands out in a magnificent way. He decides that he will not let his individuality be thrown down the drain and stands up for himself, at any cost.
The most important theme that we can easily notice in the story is the lack of freedom, which is extremely significant to the American ideals, and Harrison demonstrates it as his escapes from jail, remove his handicaps, and influence others around him. In order to have a completely equal society in Harrison Bergeron’s world, people cannot choose what they want to take part in or what they are good at because if a person is above average in anything, even appearance, they are handicapped. These brain and body devices are implanted in an effort to make everyone equal. However, instead of raising everyone up to the better level, the government chooses instead to lower people to the lowest common level of human thought and action, which means that people with beautiful faces wear masks. Also, people with above average intelligence wear a device that gives a soul-shattering piercing noise directly into the ear to destroy any train of thought. Larger and stronger people have bags of buckshot padlocked a...
While trying to break the movie theater norm, it was difficult for me to pick movies with a different variety of people and movies that were a little older so less people would be attending them. I also had a little trouble when it came to answering the phone and waiting for the other person to talk first. The problem with this one was that I had to wait for people to actually call me, which doesn't happen that often in this day and age anymore. To conclude, these social norms forced people to be in uncomfortable situations and make a decision as to how they would react to it.
Victor is negatively affected by his isolation from the world. His isolation has caused him to become addicted
Our last current election marked a division in our nation in which people of certain races, financial status, gender, and ethnicity were looked down upon by other members of society. Judgment filled our nation after citizens began to turn against other citizens, causing a deep barrier to be formed. This barrier formed because people tend to be afraid of others that are depicted as being different from themselves either socially, culturally, or physically due to the general fear of the unknown. As society depicts a group of individuals as different, a deep barrier is formed creating a group that is socially accepted by society and a group that is viewed as outcasts of society. The characters in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot and “The Garden Party” by Katherine Mansfield display indecisiveness and overall ambiguity throughout the short stories that depict social inequalities leading to the creation of outcasts in society through the creation of social barriers.