Overpopulation Exposed In Kurt Vonnegut's Short Stories

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Overpopulation is a looming issue. Equality is scarily equal. The end of the world is nigh. In a career of over fifty years, Kurt Vonnegut has written three short story collections full of science fiction and dystopian scenarios. Through these short stories, he creates imagined, futuristic societies that hyperbolize flaws of modern day society. Short, simple sentences, satirical societies, and the swift death of the main characters connect all of Vonnegut’s short stories. These elements will be analyzed through his short stories Harrison Bergeron, The Big Space Fuck, 2 B R 0 2 B. Vonnegut’s stories are concise and to the point, which comes from his history in journalism. With journalistic writing, it is important to tell the facts as they …show more content…

Vonnegut imagines “utopian” societies that have “solved” looming problems. However, these societies are anything but utopians and the “solutions” never solve the problem; they only result in a flawed, unhappy society. In Harrison Bergeron, Vonnegut imagines a society where everyone is totally equal in every way. Everyone must wear handicap bags that make them heavier, transmitters in their ears to keep them from using their brains unfairly, and masks to make everyone look the same. Vonnegut explains that our strive for equality only serves to limit our individuality and differences are to be celebrated, not masked. The Big Space Fuck is a satire of multiple things including parenting, abortions, and overpopulation. Children can take their parents to jail for how they were raised, women can get a free bathroom scale or table lamp for every abortion, and the solution to overpopulation is to shoot sperm into space in the hopes that human life will continue on somewhere else. 2 B R 0 2 B also provides social commentary on overpopulation. The solution is to murder one person for every child born, which results in sacrificing old family members for new ones. All of Vonnegut’s short stories serve a greater purpose - to satirize serious problems in our

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