Similarities Between Harrison Bergeron And The Allegory Of The Cave

Parallels between Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron”, Camus’ “Myth of Sisyphus” and “The Plague”, and Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave, assists Swift’s use of an allegory serves his satire by showing the reader through comedy the ongoing “battles” of the East vs. the West and Religion vs. Science.

Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron is a dystopic satire that shows full equality isn’t as fantastic as it sounds.

“They were equal in every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All the equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and the 213th amendments to the Constitution and to the unceasing vigilance of the US Handicapper General.”

The entire nation has been stripped of

its individuality and made into almost a socialistic and communistic society. The word “equality”, was brought and enforced into this society by its direct denotative definition. The government had complete control over their citizens from the way they thought, to the way they looked.
“He [George] was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains… On the television screen were ballerinas… They were burdened with sash weights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or pretty face would feel like something the cat drug in.”

Overall, Vonnegut’s purpose for “Harrison Bergeron” is to get across that if we were all truly, denotatively equal, then society would lack individuality, expression, and for lack

of better wording the pyramidal chain of wisdoms and strengths that should occur, which is shown through the different types of people on Lilliput who are no more than six inches tall to the people in Brobdingnag who are stories about everything. There has to be someone smarter than the next fellow or someone who is better than someone else because the nation thrives on the success of one and the failure of another. Many want pure equality, but don’t realize that full equality of all people could be potentially detrimental to the society in which we live.
Those who do not realize what is in front of them, are often left in the dark. In Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave, the main ideology was that we only know what we have been told is true and that we have no real way of knowing if it has always been true until someone else proves it to us, shows us another way to look at the same concept, or we find the truths for ourselves and when we find these truths, will we believe in them?
“And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take refuge in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him?”

These ideas somewhat merge into Johnathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, both attempt to show that there are hidden meanings for everything and every political action. As Gulliver sails around to these unknown lands, from an island called Lilliput, where the people are no more than six inches tall, to an all too well known Island of Japan, he views the different “governments” that each place has while comparing it to his own. Swift’s satire is majorly seen a children’s book for its wild story; however, the allegory of it undermines the British ruling, parliament, citizens and religion.

“Besides, our Histories of six Thousands Moons make no Mention of any other Religions, than the two great Empires of Lilliput and Blefuscu. Which two mighty Powers have, as I was going to tell you, been engaged in a most obstinate War for six and thirty Moons past. It began upon the following Occasion. It is allowed on all Hands, that the primitive Way of Breaking Eggs before we eat them, was upon the larger End; But his present Majesty’s Grandfather, while he was a Boy, going to eat an Egg, and breaking it according to ancient practice, happened to cut one of his Finger. Whereupon the Emperor his Father, published an Edict, commanding all his subjects, upon great Penalties, to break the smaller End of their Eggs.”

This war was the British Catholics against the Protestants. Even though they are on the same basis of religion, because one group has different viewpoints on some of the factors in the religion, they do not like each other. The breaking of the eggs symbolize this because even though the groups were trying to accomplish the same ending, they are too stuck up to realize and to accept their differences. Swift also criticizes the British government because they have some much power and yet they don’t seem to be using it for the betterment of society.
“And whereas the other so-called virtues of the soul seem to be akin to bodily qualities, for even when they are not originally innate they can be implanted later by habit and exercise the virtues of wisdom more than anything else contains a divine element which always remains, and by this conversion is rendered useful and profitable; or in the other hand, hurtful and useless.”

The Myth of Sisyphus and Gulliver’s travels also coincide because in some ways, Sisyphus and be seen as a symbol for mankind or the British gov’t.

“The workman of today works every day in his life at the same tasks, and this fate is no less absurd.”

Gulliver’s Travels is a political allegory that satirizes the English gov’t and how they were constantly trying to go to war and accomplish a tasks that may have been befitting to them but seemed like a waste of effort to others.

“Happiness and absurd are two sons of the same earth… It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile sufferings.”

Sisyphus is like the British gov’t because although he knows that this rock; the forced religion, the constant war, and so on, may be seen as a burden to some, they realize that the constant uphill push to strive and get the accomplished feeling is the same thing that drives for the expansion of views across the lands. The constant struggles are to perhaps convince others that what seems like a burden could be beneficial in the long run.

The Plague and Gulliver’s Travels both have similar allegorical meanings. The Plague also denotes the war and hidden truths while trying to get the reader to focus on the misleading title of the Plague, which has the reader focused on the all too well-known Bubonic

Plague.
“Something more distinctive about our town is how difficult it can be to die there. ‘Difficult' is not actually the right word; it is more a question of discomfort. It is never pleasant being ill, but there are towns and countries which support you in sickness and where one can, as it were, let oneself go…A sick person is very lonely here”

The whole time, the reader was more focused on the plague than the allegory that Camus had intended, the disease had been the distraction from the real issue of pestilence, famine, and men going off to war.
“But memory is more demanding. And, in a highly significant way, the misfortune that attacked us from outside, and which affected a whole town, did not only bring us an unjust suffering, about which we might have complained, it also forced us to make ourselves suffer, and so made us consent to pain. This was one way that the disease had of distracting attention and confusing the issue.”

When Camus wrote “This was one way that the disease had of distracting attention and confusing the issue.” It seems as if he is literally telling the reader, that there is a bigger focus and no one is realizing it, they are dead focused on the sickness that is only affecting themselves and not on his main point that there is a war going on and its killing more millions of people everywhere. Due to this, it can also be taken that “the plague” is actually a person’s nature to focus on situations that only directly affect them. Other than that, humans find it much easier to turn a blind eye.