Harrison Bergeron Essay

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Ask yourself this question: When you read through the lines of a novel, how many times have you asked yourself, “Man… I feel like I’ve read something like this before?” You probably may have not picked up the same book, but you can relate it to other books that you’ve read, the movie you last saw, or something that you’ve personally dealt with in your life. It may have not been the same character, the same plot, or even the same motive, but whatever the author was trying to say behind the meaning of the novel was very relatable. The reason one might feel this way is because of theme. Theme is the main idea or underlying meaning of a literary work that may be stated directly or indirectly. These themes are always universal because we as the…show more content…
“Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else” (Vonnegut, 2012). Everyone was exactly the same. Characters like Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General of the United States, would ensure that the laws were being followed and that people, such as Harrison, weren’t trying to over achieve more than what society had placed for its people. Although, one would think that equality is the main theme of the novel, censorship is the most dominate theme. The society in the novel that was supposed to portray the aspects of a utopian society is the complete opposite. Instead, it depicts a corrupted government in which the use of tools not only establishes equality, but also impedes human intelligence through censorship. For example, it is required by law for intelligent people to wear a radio twenty-four hours a day in order to repress intellectual thoughts. Although the novel doesn’t give a clear distinction of the intelligent level that one can have. One can assume by reading the novel that the standard is very limited due to the fact that intelligent citizens can’t have a coherent opinion; however, the less educated are the main conversation holders in the book. “Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send

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