Cost Of Equality In Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron

In the story, “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut, it is the year 2081 and everything is finally equal. One of the main characters, Hazel is the wife to George and is pretty dumb. Although, in this society she is average. While the husband, George is very smart, but in this society he is handicapped. George must wear weights around his neck to dumb down his strength. As well as an ear piece that makes noises when he thinks too much. Theses noises disrupt George’s thoughts. This way everyone is equal and no one is smarter or dumber than anyone else. Hazel and George have a son named Harrison Bergeron. Harrison was taken by the handicapper general when he was 14. One day while Hazel and George were watching a ballet on T.V. there was an …show more content…
In this case that would be the handicapper general, Diana Moon Glamper. There would have to be someone to keep the equality because there has to be someone to decide who needs to be handicapped or who is average. This is a cost of equality because then there would be competition on who gets to be the handicapper general. Another cost of equality is death. Proof of this is when Harrison Bergeron was killed by Diana Moon Glamper. Harrison was killed because he challenged the equality by taking off his handicaps. This is a cost of equality because if you challenge the government you could easily be killed, just for wanting to be different. The cost of equality is very important to think about before saying everyone should be equal. The cost of equality could be anything from simple inequalities to being shot and killed. Even just bringing others down with weights and masks. Equality is not as simple as it may seem. Not everything can be easily made just by making everyone or even everything equal. Vonnegut killed off harrison at the end of “Harrison Bergeron” to show the major costs of equality if everyone and everything was finally