Inequality In Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron

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Aristotle, the wise, Greek, philosopher once said, “The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.” In Kurt Vonnegut’s, “Harrison Bergeron”, the government attempts to create equality between all individuals, and unfortunately, propitiously succeeds. The equality laws state that every mankind must be identical to each other in terms of appearance and knowledge. Intelligent beings are handicapped with a monitor in their ear which emits caustic sounds every twenty seconds or so, in order for them not to be able to hold a thought in their head longer than necessary. Charming and good-looking individuals are forced to wear a paper bag over their heads, or are told to physically ridicule certain parts of their face. Graceful…show more content…
Individuals are no longer individuals because they have all been handicapped to have the same abilities, talents, and looks. Supplementary to this, people are in pain and agony constantly, whether it is from the cacophony going on in their ears every few seconds, or from the bags that weigh dozens of pounds on their backs. “He began to think glimmeringly about his abnormal son who was now in jail, about Harrison, but a twenty-one-gun salute in his head stopped that. It was such a doozy that George was white and trembling, and tears stood on the rims of his red eyes. Two of of the eight ballerinas had collapsed to the studio floor, and were holding their temples.” Not only are people in physical pain, but people are also being tortured unknowingly. The freedom of thought and speech has been destroyed, people’s memory has been entirely broken, and their emotions have been ripped out. Nevertheless, equality lives. Parts of equality survive by nourishing themselves on the affliction of…show more content…
However, the government did not have enough potential to realize that by degrading every “non-average” human by handicapping them, equality would not live to the fullest. If people were not forced to wear masks, they would certainly assume that they are not “beautiful enough” to cover their face. If people were not insisted upon to wear a handicap in their ear, then they without a doubt, were not smart enough to do so. Although everyone in the society has been vulgarized to the limit, equality continues to vacaillate between the last few stages of its

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