Synthesis Essay On Harrison Bergeron

The United States has always been called the “land of opportunity”. Individuals are said to be free to pursue their dreams to the best of their abilities. Almost everyone living in the type of society of “Harrison Bergeron” is born with a fixed mindset, where they think there is no room for growth and everyone is okay with settling for average. A truly equal society is something that sounds great, but will become a disaster in the long run. Vonnegut uses characterization, word choice, and several forms of technology to warn his readers about the potential drawbacks of a truly equal society, and this can relate substantially to issues in our modern society.
The author uses many forms of characterization and word choice to warn the readers of what he thinks would happen if our society became truly equal in “Harrison Bergeron”. For example, George’s “...intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all
When the parents of Harrison were watching the death of their son on television, I do not believe that they could actually “feel” what was happening or could completely process anything for a long period of time. Hazel said that she remembered “‘Something real sad on television...It’s all kind of mixed up in my mind’”(Source A). You can tell that Hazel saw the murder happen, but she couldn’t feel or remember the incident. George couldn’t remember it either because of his mental handicap making a sharp noise in his head (Source A). This shows that this technology has a greatly effective drawback because they were not able to feel and show emotion like diverse people can; it seems like anyone is just any other person due to an equal world. This pretty much takes away the purpose of life: to love and care for one another. That is how the author uses technology and television to relate to the author’s