Starting with the first sentence, the story Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. already relates to today’s societal issues with equality, stating that it is now the future and equality has been met. Vonnegut starts off the sentence saying “The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal,” and I instantly began to think of today’s society and how almost every day the issue of equality is brought up, whether it be with feminism, gay marriage, etc. He then begins to explain what is so equal amongst everybody. In the 4th sentence he states, “Nobody was smarter than anybody else,” and then continues saying, “nobody was better looking than anybody else, and nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else.” After reading these sentences, it
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He then goes to describe the ballerinas and their various handicaps. He begins by explaining how they were not very good at dancing, there were no better than anybody else would have been. Their dancing is limited because they have different weighted sacks and they had to wear masks so that they all were ugly. He started explaining how one girl’s mask was particularly uglier than every other girl, meaning she must have been extremely beautiful. I find this to be very ironic. They are required to wear masks to hide their beauty, yet by them wearing the masks it still make an inequality by everyone knowing the uglier the mask the more beautiful the person. And when she began to read the bulletin she had such a girly voice, that she had to change the sound of her voice to make it uncompetitive. How do you know if your voice is too girly? Who comes up with these rules and how does everyone know what the standards are? Later on, they begin to talk about a Handicapper General. Meaning that there is somebody in charge of the handicaps which then makes me think that they probably don’t have any handicaps if they have to be in charge of everybody else’s. This means that there is no equality because somebody is in a higher power of everybody …show more content…
It goes to show how powerful these handicaps are and how much power they have over these people. I think by this story being told in the third person it allows the reader to respond in a different way than as if it were written in the first person. It shows you an outsider’s perspective instead of an insider’s perspective. I believe the theme of this story is essential that equality is merely impossible, but that equity could be possible. Inequality is what makes society better, it is what makes the world functional. There will never be a time where everybody on earth is
He then goes to describe the ballerinas and their various handicaps. He begins by explaining how they were not very good at dancing, there were no better than anybody else would have been. Their dancing is limited because they have different weighted sacks and they had to wear masks so that they all were ugly. He started explaining how one girl’s mask was particularly uglier than every other girl, meaning she must have been extremely beautiful. I find this to be very ironic. They are required to wear masks to hide their beauty, yet by them wearing the masks it still make an inequality by everyone knowing the uglier the mask the more beautiful the person. And when she began to read the bulletin she had such a girly voice, that she had to change the sound of her voice to make it uncompetitive. How do you know if your voice is too girly? Who comes up with these rules and how does everyone know what the standards are? Later on, they begin to talk about a Handicapper General. Meaning that there is somebody in charge of the handicaps which then makes me think that they probably don’t have any handicaps if they have to be in charge of everybody else’s. This means that there is no equality because somebody is in a higher power of everybody …show more content…
It goes to show how powerful these handicaps are and how much power they have over these people. I think by this story being told in the third person it allows the reader to respond in a different way than as if it were written in the first person. It shows you an outsider’s perspective instead of an insider’s perspective. I believe the theme of this story is essential that equality is merely impossible, but that equity could be possible. Inequality is what makes society better, it is what makes the world functional. There will never be a time where everybody on earth is