Individualism in "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut

Essay by oxodyeoxoHigh School, 10th gradeA+, November 2006

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Individualism is a very important thing in everyone's life, its part of our personality as portrayed in the story called, "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Taking away that individualism is taking apart some of that person. The book in many ways shows what would happen if no one was different and all the people in the world were the same, or basically how disastrous. One example is when the Bergeron's were watching TV and the announcer came on to announce. He started out enthusiastically and with fire, but automatically got a shock. He tried to act out and be the announcer man with energy, but since everyone was the same he just gave up and let the ballerina read the announcements in monotone voice. Now I for one would never want to hear n announcer that talked in one tone the whole entire time. I addition Vonnegut shows another example is how all the smart and beautiful people have to wear mental and physical handicaps.

They wear those handicaps because the government wanted to make everyone equal. So basically if you were even a little bit smart, you would get a handicap and that went with physical attributes too. Finally, the author uses the character Harrison as how most people should act, but being someone different. He acted out and rebelled against the government when they were forcing everyone to be the same. Instead of going with the flow he chose to be himself, and literally broke the chains that the government was using to handicap him. Overall, being you is the best thing to do in life, but society today is portraying the perfect kid that everyone is trying to be.