Ridiculous Harrison Bergeron

Brian Taylor
Professor Michael Mcanear
LIT 100
4/17/2015
The Ridiculous Harrison Bergeron The short story “Harrison Bergeron,” by Kurt Vonnegut, is a story about a dystopian, futuristic society in which every citizen is made “equal” to everyone else. In the story, the author seems to be telling a tale of the horrors of socialism and putting everyone on the same level, but the author is giving a humorous portrayal of socialist society to show that fears of socialism are ridiculous. In order to examine the themes in “Harrison Bergeron”, and to discern what the work reveals about the author's feelings or opinions on the subject understanding two parts of the short story is necessary: examples of ridiculous ideas in the story, and jokes in the
story that make it more of a satire. In “Harrison Bergeron,” amendments to the constitution of the citizens of the country in which this takes place have given the United States Handicapper General the ability to equalize all the citizens.
This means that things like strong citizens are given weights to slow them down and beautiful citizens are given grotesque masks to hide their features. George Bergeron, Harrison's father, thinks at one point the reason of these things by saying, “so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in.” One example of these ridiculous handicaps would be George's own handicapper. His features that needs to be handicapped are his intelligence and strength. He is required to wear it by law and in the story it is described as, “tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.” At one point in the story, after a particularly intense noise George is described as “white and trembling, and tears stood on the rims of his red eyes.” Also, two of the eight ballerinas that were on the television show that the couple were watching were forced to collapse on the floor of the studio, holding their heads because of the sound. Another example of ridiculous equalizing is the handicaps of the story's namesake Harrison Bergeron. Harrison is described in the story as an incredibly strong 14 year old boy
that is also a genius. His handicaps are described in the story as having scrap metal hung all over his body because he was too strong for the handicap general to create slick military style weights. His hindrances are further described as “Instead of a little ear radio for a mental handicap, he wore a tremendous pair of earphones, and spectacles with thick wavy lenses. The spectacles were intended to make him not only half blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides.” Just these examples of the hindrances that the handicapper general has given out are enough to see that these solutions of equalization are exaggerated and ridiculous. With this story being written in 1961, with other authors such as Isaac Asimov and many others giving science fiction examples that are close to or vaguely parallel future life, Kurt Vonnegut giving these examples of a futuristic solution to making everyone equal can be nothing but satire. These caricature examples of science fiction solutions to equalizing a civilization's population are given along with some instances that almost seem like jokes in the story. At one point, when Harrison is being announced to be on the loose, an announcer has a speech impediment. This announcer is described to the reader as being “like all announcers.” The idea of all television announcers or radio for that matter having “a serious speech impediment” is sad at best and comical at worst. It reminds me of the 2006 movie “Idiocracy”, which is a comedy about a post apocalyptic America in which everyone is a ridiculous consumer and almost mentally handicapped, but not by the government. Another sort of joke in this story is the ending in which after Harrison's mother witnesses her son's death, she mentions it to her husband, who left the television set to get a beer while his son was declaring himself emperor, as “something real sad on television.” This to be is almost completely satirical. In conclusion, To explain what Kurt Vonnegut is trying to say with this short story looking at the ending is important. The ending is almost comical because Harrison's parent's witness his murder and all his mother can say about it is that it is sad. The reader is led to believe that after the murder, the Bergeron's just sat back at their couch and continued to live their lives. With these examples, Kurt Vonnegut is trying to paint a picture for the reader. It is a humorous and ridiculous painting of a socialist society. Vonnegut has the ability to give a story in which socialism, which Kurt Vonnegut is often described to support, is a good thing, but he gives us an amusing satire to poke fun at conservatives who think that socialism is an evil red devil. Vonnegut giving us a society that is handicapped to the point that all a nation can do is sit on the couch and watch a train wreck can not be anything else but satire.