Summary Of Harrison Bergeron By Kurt Vonnegut

In the short story “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut the story is set in the year 2081 and presents to the reader how life might turn out in the future. The author illustrates that one-day the government is going to try to have every individual be the same, resulting in Vonnegut’s demonstration of a dystopian future for the population. The world ahead of everyone is a world of equality. In the year 2081 everyone is the same; they are all the same weight, if someone is beautiful or handsome they are to wear masks, given black caps for their teeth and people were given a mental handicap radio in there ears if they were too smart. As it states in the reading: “They were burdened with sashweights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked…”
(Vonnegut) depicting everyone’s individual traits. Even Harrison Bergeron was arrested and placed into a prison for being to different from everyone else: “He is a genius and an athlete, is under-handicapped, and should be regarded extremely dangerous” (Vonnegut). Harrison was considered dangerous because he was different so when he rebelled against the government he was shot down and killed. After he was shot televisions burned out and a handicap signal went off in people’s minds getting them to forget there thoughts and what had just occurred; others were just not smart enough to remember what had happened bringing life back to the perfect dystopia they were use too. Everyone was once again normal.