Harrison Bergeron Essay

6

Moore

Taylor Moore

Mrs. Caraher

ENG4U1

February 19,2014

Harrison Bergeron: The Importance of Individuality

In the short story "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut the theme of the story was based on his satirical view of the human's desire to achieve equality. In this stories society, the gifted, strong, and beautiful are required to wear handicaps of earphones, heavy weights, and hideous masks. Equality is something that has been fought for by all different ethnic groups since the beginning of time and is still being fought for today. Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron" is based on the issue of equality and the struggle for humans to possess it. Vonnegut clearly made a point of saying that everybody must have the same intelligence and also their physical strengths and attributes must be identical. When they do fight for their individualism he gets punished for it. People so often want to be equal to everybody else but the writer is trying to show that at the end of the day you want to have your own uniqueness and individuality .

Hazel Bess Laugenour [i.e., Laugenour] "Neptunes P...

Kurt Vonnegut speaking at Case Western Reserve Uni...

Vonnegut Wooden Nickel

To begin with, people have been fighting for the right to Equality for decades. It is a great idea that the world should embrace to a certain extent. In this short story Vonnegut believes that if we take equality to the extreme people wont have any unique or good qualities left. People in are society today have their own individuality such as musical, academic, physical talents but in a world of absolute equality, each human being would never be looked upon as anything more or less than the person beside him or her. Unfortunately, this advantage may only go so far. For example, how can an intelligent being be given as much credit as the simple minded human beside...