Similarities Between Anthem And Harrison Bergeron

Dystopian Family “Love is like wind, you can’t see it, but you can feel it”- Nicholas Sparks. Anthem and “Harrison Bergeron” takes place in the future, in collective societies. In Anthem everything is done for the good of society and the group, no one is an individual. While in “Harrison Bergeron” people have handicaps to make everyone mentally and physically equal. The main characters in each story, Equality 7-2521 and Harrison Bergeron, are both tall, athletic, tenacious and intelligent men, who are threats to the collective societies. Although “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and Anthem by Ayn Rand are both pieces of dystopian literature, their portrayal of family differs greatly. To begin, Love is an important part of family,

In “Harrison Bergeron” having a child and raising it with your spouse is, the normal in this society just like modern day. In fact the short story states “And it was that clammy month that the HG men took George and Hazel Bergeron’s fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away” (Vonnegut 1). For the couple the time of year this story takes place in is a melancholy month for them because Hazel and George love Harrison deeply. To sum this up having children and, raising the child is how the society works. However in Anthem, children are born and raised completely different than in “Harrison Bergeron”. In the Novella Equality 7-2521 explains how reproduction works and he says “This is the each spring when all the men older than twenty and all the women older than eighteen are sent for one night to the City Palace of Mating. And each of the men have one of the women assigned to them by the Council of Eugenics. Children are born each winter, but women never see their and children never know their parents” (Rand 41). IN this quote Equality 7-2521 explains the shameful was kids are born by assigned two people who are assigned to each other and, once the child is born there is no attachment to the parents. This society completely controls the reproduction of people in this society. In conclusion “Harrison Bergeron” and Anthem have distinct and particular way to have an offspring and raise them

Even though both stories take place in collective societies family life differs greatly. A “normal” family for “Harrison Bergeron” is two loving parents and a child raised by the offspring’s parents. While in Anthem, there is no family, parents don’t know the children and no one knows what love is. Sixty nine percent of American families with children under the age of eighteen live in families with two