Do you ever wonder whether people are truly equal? In the world of the short story “Harrison Bergeron” written by Kurt Vonnegut, everyone is “equal” in terms of strength, wisdom, and beauty. No one is stronger, smarter, or prettier than each other. Everyone supposedly is virtually the same because of the new laws and handicaps implemented in 2081. However, not everyone is truly equal in this story.…
In short story “Harrison Bergeron” Kurt Vonnegut uses symbols and hyperbole to show how conformity isn’t better. Their society's solution to equality is to change the people who have unique attributes and make them the same as the average person. Vonnegut uses the handicaps to show how equality isn’t better and how their government fails to make everyone equal. They try to force individuals to change so they are conforming and no one will compete against each other. If you are above average you have a handicap, so it is obvious you are superior in some way. Vonnegut shows the characters are aware of this when George thinks “the ballerina… must have been extraordinarily beautiful, because the mask she wore was hideous”(Vonnegut, Kurt “Harrison…
Randall Jarrell, poet, critic, essayist, and former Poet Laureate of the United States, was born in 1914 in Nashville Tennessee and attended Vanderbilt University in that same city. There, Jarrell received his BA and MA studying under John Crowe Ransom and Robert Penn Warren. His poetry is influenced by W.H. Auden and Robert Frost and often uses what poets call “the common dialogue of Americans.” He passed away October 14th, 1965.…
Both swallowed in their job, the janitor in “Jorge the Church Janitor Finally Quits” by Martin Espada and the secretary in “The Secretary Chant” by Marge Piercy feel unappreciated and lost as employees. Jorge is “outside…of [Americans] understanding” and The Secretary is lost in her work and compares herself to objects such as her “hips are a desk.” The employees from these poems have become hidden behind their duties and are slowly sinking into the unknown.…
Society’s focus on materialism and consumerism has lead to the shift in our value system, which in result has lead to the degradation and neglect of the environment.…
The use of handicaps in “Harrison Bergeron” is to enforce equality amongst the people. The fact that all the handicaps are external and that there are various forms of these handicaps ironically shows each person actual strengths or differences. For example, if you were exceptionally beautiful, you wore a mask on your face; and, the uglier the mask the prettier you actually were. In George Bergeron’s case, he wore a headset with a brain transmitter on it that would amplify sharp noises whenever he had an above average thought; this results in keeping his IQ level at the same level everyone else. George also must wear a 47lb weight around his neck to counter his physical strength. The weight is a neck harness with sacks of birdshot in them; and, if he were to try and take some of the birdshot out he would be find $2000 and serve 2 years in prison for each pellet removed from the sacks. Throughout this short story, George doesn’t feel the risk is worth the punishment that he would receive for removing a tiny pellet so he refrains from doing so. The fear of jail time and torture from the government is a constant fear of the people.…
P5: A student describes the ways different technologies and media of production affect the language and structure of particular texts.…
The government forces citizens to wear different levels of handicap devices according to their differing abilities. For example, a handicap radio is forced on anyone considered smart, a mask is forced on anyone considered beautiful, and heavy bags full of birdshots are forced on anyone considered strong. All these rules are enforced by the “211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution,” and the “unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.” However, this also implicates that equality is not actually achieved because the Handicapper General is evidently not restricted in the same manner.…
In the above lines pulled from the poem "One Today", I put the words in bold that I would change if I had been the author. I would change the word "write" to deliver, because anyone can write a poem, but Blanco was stating that his mothers hard work got him where he is today, and not everyone is able to deliver a speech at a presidential inauguration. In the second and third examples, I would change "hear" to observe and "tired" to weary, as I believe those are stronger word choices that will get the authors point across with more conviction. I would change the word "head" in the fourth example to trudge, because in the following lines, he gives examples of hardship and is trying to convey how exhausted the person is. Finally, I would change…
The works we studied within Creative Writing were all helpful in creating my own works to submit to the class. Throughout all of the reading, many of the works inspired me in different ways, whether it was short story plot ideas or word usage in the poems. While crafting my work for the final portfolio, I reviewed many of the poems from our poetry packet in an effort to find inspiration and to create new interesting images. I took the most inspiration for my formal poem, which I found most difficult to write. One of the poems that was most useful to me was Jilly Dybka’s “Memphis, 1976.” Dybka’s poem follows the sestina form; I also wrote my last poem in this form, so it helped to follow the form by looking at her poem as an example. Dybka’s…
Poetry arouses great emotions in people. How have four poems “aroused emotions” in you? What have you learnt about war and the emotions associated with it?…
Lorna Dee Cervantes' poem, “Poema para los Californios Muertos” (“Poem for the Dead Californios”), is a commentary on what happened to the original inhabitants of California when California was still Mexico, and an address to the speaker's dead ancestors. Utilizing a unique dynamic, consistently alternating between Spanish and English, Cervantes accurately represents the fear, hatred, and humility experienced by the “Californios” through rhythm, arrangement, tone, and most importantly, through use of language.…
Life leads us to excessive wishes that often result in a man’s downfall. Sir Philip Sidney in “Thou Blind Man’s Mark” portrays his hypocrisy towards desire and shows how it influenced to their downfall and destruction. In his sonnet, Sidney uses metaphor, alliteration and repetition to convey his feelings for desire.…
The text that I will be analyzing is a poem by Lorna Crozier called The Child Who Walks Backwards. Throughout my analysis I will look into parental abuse, underlying meanings in the lines in the poetry, as well as connections I can make personally to the book. I think it is also important that I bring forth essential messages in the words and statements of the poem. The main theme I will choose to focus on is that abuse does not only happen at school or back alleys, but that it happens in homes as well.…
In the poem “An Echo Sonnet”, author Robert Pack writes of a conversation between a person’s voice and its echo. With the use of numerous literary techniques, Pack is able to enhance the meaning of the poem: that we must depend on ourselves for answers because other opinions are just echoes of our own ideas.…