Harrison Bergeron Setting Essay
Harrison Bergeron Setting Essay “Harrison Bergeron”, by Kurt Vulger is a story about a teenager who discovers the problems with the handicapped equality of his dystopian world and tries to speak out about it. Throughout the story a common theme is how nothing new has been invented or changed, everybody and everything is kept at a controlled medium. In this essay we will be exploring the depth of how the setting has affected the kids growing up in it and how the setting caused Harrison to speak out.
The setting is important at first because it is the world that Harrison grew up in and it is the world that formed his ideals. The equalness of this world has shaped most people's ideals and thoughts to not think about the privileges they are
lacking. An example in the movie is when Harrison is told to go to the house where he can take off his band. At first he is very scared to take it off, as this is taught to be a terrible offense in his controlled world. Harrison is scared of doing this because of the setting he grew up in. It has been embedded in him that doing that is a crime to yourself and to anyone you are then smarter than.
The next thing the setting has done is by being so controlled and not having anything bad happen the people with the bands don’t react to anything extreme that happens. When Harrison kills himself on live t.v nobody except the news show people even react, the parents just forget about it. This shows how even to the most surprising things, the people don’t really react or do anything about it. That's why Harrison's show where he told everyone what was going on did nothing. No uprising occurred, the people just resumed their lives as sheep.
The setting also shows how this forced equality has shaped the cultural landscape of America. The equality in this world has made it so no culture really exists, it has made everyone the same and through that made nobody have anything to be proud of. The handicaps and regularity of life in the dystopia has stripped people of their feelings. For example when the really dumb girl is selected to marry Harrison she doesn’t really love him, and he doesn’t love her. The people are just told to love and to marry and everything like that because the lack of envy has also stripped them of the ability to love, and therefore also to love an idea, or a culture.
The equality has made nobody have anything to celebrate or root for. When the dad is watching football he keeps saying that “they” didn’t handicap the players enough. It seems this would mean that no new records would have been set, and all the sports professionals would be just the same as any other citizen. So what would you root for and strive to be? In conclusion, nothing has been accomplished as a result of this equality, civilization has effectively gone backwards instead of forwards. The setting of this story shows how the controlled equality has shaped America and the childhood of Harrison, causing the events that happened in the movie.
The setting is important at first because it is the world that Harrison grew up in and it is the world that formed his ideals. The equalness of this world has shaped most people's ideals and thoughts to not think about the privileges they are
lacking. An example in the movie is when Harrison is told to go to the house where he can take off his band. At first he is very scared to take it off, as this is taught to be a terrible offense in his controlled world. Harrison is scared of doing this because of the setting he grew up in. It has been embedded in him that doing that is a crime to yourself and to anyone you are then smarter than.
The next thing the setting has done is by being so controlled and not having anything bad happen the people with the bands don’t react to anything extreme that happens. When Harrison kills himself on live t.v nobody except the news show people even react, the parents just forget about it. This shows how even to the most surprising things, the people don’t really react or do anything about it. That's why Harrison's show where he told everyone what was going on did nothing. No uprising occurred, the people just resumed their lives as sheep.
The setting also shows how this forced equality has shaped the cultural landscape of America. The equality in this world has made it so no culture really exists, it has made everyone the same and through that made nobody have anything to be proud of. The handicaps and regularity of life in the dystopia has stripped people of their feelings. For example when the really dumb girl is selected to marry Harrison she doesn’t really love him, and he doesn’t love her. The people are just told to love and to marry and everything like that because the lack of envy has also stripped them of the ability to love, and therefore also to love an idea, or a culture.
The equality has made nobody have anything to celebrate or root for. When the dad is watching football he keeps saying that “they” didn’t handicap the players enough. It seems this would mean that no new records would have been set, and all the sports professionals would be just the same as any other citizen. So what would you root for and strive to be? In conclusion, nothing has been accomplished as a result of this equality, civilization has effectively gone backwards instead of forwards. The setting of this story shows how the controlled equality has shaped America and the childhood of Harrison, causing the events that happened in the movie.