Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron

Superior Essays
Imagine you live in a society where the smart must become dumb and the talented are forced to become infirm. In this society you are the smartest. You are the best in every way, but you can’t show it. You are forced to wear handicaps that make not think any better than anyone else. You are forced to wear weights so that you are not faster or more athletic than them. You even have to wear a mask to hide your face if you are considered attractive. This is the society that Harrison resides in, in Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s short storyHarrison Bergeron” Harrison is the smartest, the strongest, the best. He does not want to hide himself. He wants to be able to show who he is and how much he can do. He creates an uprising with few people. When he stands …show more content…
One piece of evidence is “Harrison tore the straps of his handicap harness like wet tissue paper, tore straps guaranteed to support five thousand pounds.” This is significant because in the beginning of the text George states that if you try to remove or impede the handicappers you will go to jail and you must pay a huge fine. Although Harrison was already in jail, this would just make it worse for himself. If the police were to catch him they could make him even more handicapped or they could try to do some physical harm since he had already done so much to go against them. That would cause a danger for …show more content…
This connects to the idea that standing up for what you believe in, although there may be dangers, because you are doing the morally righteous thing by showing that Harrison died when he believed he was doing the morally righteous thing. The symbolism is shown in the sentence, “He winced. There was the sound of a riveting gun in his head.” The gunshot symbolizes Harrison’s death. George just missed his son being shot on live television. Then right after George had missed his son being shot with a gun on the T.V., he heard a gun fire in his handicapper. His son was shot while standing up for what he thought was the honorable thing to do. This makes me realize that this story shows you should stand up for what you believe in when it is the morally righteous thing to do, despite the

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