Kurt Vonnegut’s short story, “Harrison Bergeron” expresses, through theme and plot, a futuristic tyrant society where freedom of thought, intellectual ability, physical beauty and strength, and creativity have been manipulated by government force. He opens the story with this narrative about social equality in the future:

 

“The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the Law. They were equal in every which way. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th… Amendents to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General” (Vonnegut).

 

The concept of social equality has become so extreme that people in this world are handicapped if they have any type of special physical or mental attributes. It is so bad that handicaps have are regulated a new office known as the “Handicapper General.” It is interesting to see the use of handicaps on average or above average people as the reverse is true today. It is the actually people who need handicaps that use them, as modern society assigns special advantages to handicapped and disabled people, such as scholarship and residence.

 

Vonnegut’s inclusion of the U.S. Constitution and the amendments used to enforce equality gives the story a powerful setting. It shows the audience that this is a society where the state has over-stepped its authority. Vonnegut is “providing a warning about the rise of a future technological dictatorship as a result of American society being tricked into supporting an abstract notion of equality. Also, he could be pointing out that the concept of equality is inherently ambiguous and it cannot be defined by self-serving politicians and sociopathic, power-hungry government agents” (Nanapvcc). What seems like noble and self-less legislative act to create an equal society could actually be; “a Fascist political ideology that promotes the elimination of certain people or social groups that are deemed to be different or non-conforming (i.e. Nazi Germany, and Stalinist U.S.S.R.)” (Navapvcc). Vonnegut’s use of the U.S. Constitution in the opening of the story is also a reference to the individual freedoms and rights that were initially created by law to create a democratic society, however; they have now been violated by this future tyrant of a government. 

 

 

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