Harrison Bergeron Essay

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Saghar Khairani Professor Horton ENGL 1302-351 20 February 2014 Harrison Bergeron Kurt Vonnegut Jr. uses irony to showcase the theme of the dark side of equality in his satirical science fiction short story “Harrison Bergeron”. The futuristic world that Kurt Vonnegut creates has a very flawed idea of equality. People who are considered to be above average are given handicaps in order make them the same as everyone else but it actually sets them apart. We see how the government pushes the idea that everything should be fair and everyone should get a chance, which makes mediocrity the standard. This dystopian society discourages competition because everyone is made to be equal in every which way. This stifles creativity and improvement. Vonnegut explores the dark side of the idea of equality by taking it to the extreme to create irony. The character of Harrison is seen as “a genius and an athlete” (Vonnegut 218). He is very handsome, strong, and intelligent. Because of this, he is given very extreme handicaps like unusually large earphones, enormous weights, dense eyeglasses, and a red nose. “The rest of Harrison’s appearance was Halloween and hardware. Nobody had ever borne heavier handicaps.” (Vonnegut 218). Ironically, instead of the handicaps making him weaker and equal, they made him stronger and set him apart because of the size of his handicaps. He was so exceptional and his handicaps so great that it put him way above the rest. The ballerinas wore huge weighs as well and ugly mask to hide their faces to make them equal. Despite this, George was able to see that “She must have been extraordinarily beautiful, because the mask she wore was hideous. And it was easy to see that she was the strongest and most graceful of all the dancers, for her handicap bags were as big as those worn by two-hundred-pound men.” (Vonnegut 217). In order to make everyone
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