Harrison Bergeron Essay: Society Is Not Equal

Harrison Bergeron Essay Have you ever wondered what the world would be like if everyone was legally forced into the governments opinion of equality? In Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s short story "Harrison Bergeron", it is the year 2081 and the government has altered society to be mentally, physically and socially equal. The beautiful people are covered with hideous masks, the intelligent people wear ear pieces that let off loud obnoxious sounds at random to throw off there thought process and the strong people wear weights to be equal to the weaker people. The society is not equal because no one can truly be changed unless they want to be. Putting a handicap on an intelligent person does not make him or her equal to an average person, because he or she is still intelligent and if the whole society where really equal everyone would have handicaps not just the beautiful, strong, and intelligent people. One example of society not being equal is that no matter what anybody may do to a person to change them, they wont truly change unless they are willing, a genius with a handicap is still a genius, meaning that he or she would not truly be equal to an average person. For instance as George and Hazel Bergeron where watching television, Georges ear piece goes off with a 21 gun solute and the narrator states "...George was white and trembling and tears stood on the rims of his red eyes" (209). That ear piece does not make George equal to any average person, all it does is scramble his thoughts and cause him pain and will probably make him eventually go deaf. If George is feeling pain, then everyone else should too, because it is not equal for any one person to feel pain but it would be equal if everyone felt it. Although his thoughts may be scrambled in his head, that does not change that he is intelligent. Another example is when Harrison escaped from jail, one of the ballerinas had to make the announcement of his escape and the narrator states "And she had to