Equality In Harrison Bergeron

Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron” is a satirical and dystopian science fiction story of an egalitarian society controlled by the government. The story starts off in the future of America that has reached equality by eliminating the gifted or controlling them with handicap technology. The Handicapper general team upholds this equality and ensures that all laws are enforced to keep the equality. Harrison Bergeron the main protagonist is taken away from his parents Hazel and George by the handicapper general for going against the government. Both of his parents can’t fully comprehend this tragedy because Hazel has average intelligence and George who is intelligent has handicaps to keep him of average intelligence. As Hazel and George are watching television
their show is interrupted by an announcement that Harrison had escaped from prison and is considered extremely dangerous. Harrison himself then storms the television studio declaring himself emperor and ripping off all his handicaps that hinder his strength, intelligence, and good looks. This rebellion however is cut short by handicapper general Diana Glampers shooting both Harrison and the empress. Vonnegut finishes his tale with the readers relies that George missed the whole ordeal and Hazel crying but not remember exactly what happened. Throughout the story, the author reveals that total equality is not ideal through the characters, setting and tone. Vonnegut uses the characters to illustrate that total equality is impossible to obtain.
In the story the idea of total equality has become so unreasonable and twisted that people that have special physical and intellectual attributes or favorable genetic traits, are considered unequal from the non-gifted, creating a sense of inequality. This is made evident by Vonnegut’s flat and static character George, who is above average intelligence and strength, is forced to be different from the norms of society by wearing handicaps of weights and a radio head device to keep him from accessing his natural gifted talents. In spite of the unfair action to keep George equal to the norm of society, his wife Hazel creates another sense of inequality with her feeling envious of George’s handicap of being able to hear all the different lovely sounds and because she is considered normal a handicap like Georges is unnecessary. So the idea that in order for there to be total equality, society must be unfair or unjust to another group in this case the gifted or non-norms of society, but at the same time total equality will always be unattainable because their will always be a trait that makes someone unequal or envious of
another. Along with characters Vonnegut uses many types of tone to enhance and develop the theme. The evidence that total equality is so important that freedom of expression is non-existent in this society leads to a depressing tone, which is one of the main tones through out the story. The characters of George, the ballerinas, and the musicians most if not all unfairly have to wear handicaps that stunt their creative flow and neither person nor group can actively use their gift because of this. This is made evident when ballerinas who are supposed to be a form of grace and beauty are reduced to amateurs or when George is playing with the notion that dancers shouldn’t have handicaps but was never able to finish that thought because of his head radio. Therefor total equality is not ideal because the human race needs creativity and people who think outside the box to achieve the impossible to possible. If there was no creativity then progress would be stagnant and society would stop advancing.