Harrison Bergeron Literary Analysis

Picture a society, far in the future, where everyone, by government control, must be on the same level. Would this be Hell or a utopia? This is the subject of Kurt Vonnegut's short story, "Harrison Bergeron". In this society, the gifted, strong, and beautiful are required to wear multiple handicaps of earphones, heavy weights, and hideous masks. In turn, these constraints leave the world equal, or arguably devoid of, from brains to brawn to beauty. With the constant push for equality among all people, Vonnegut reveals a world that society is diligently working toward. "

Harrison Bergeron" is written as a form of satire with heavy irony, to demonstrate the clear difference between equity and equality in society. "Harrison Bergeron" is...show more content...

Beauty is seen as an unfair attribute so it is countered by beautiful people being required to wear ugly masks. This is an example of the satirical nature of the story because it is still obvious to tell who is beautiful and who is not since the more beautiful, the uglier the mask. This is evidenced during the scene where Hazel and George are watching the ballet. In reference to one of the ballerinas, "She must have been extraordinarily beautiful, because the mask she wore was hideous" Vonnegut wrote this story in the midst of 1961, during the Cold War and at the beginning of the anti–establishment 60s. Knowing the historical significance of this time period offers context. This provides insight into the thought processes and emotions behind creating the story, or what it could be written as a response to. Once analyzed, it is clear to see that it is filled with various social and political critiques of 1960s America. It's safe to say that he aimed to shed some light onto what might happen if America followed in the footsteps of communist ideals like the Soviet Union's USSR during the 1950s and 1960s. This connects back to the conflict of equality vs. equity because communism was created in to represent true "equality" of citizens. The goal was to make input and output the same for everyone. Harrison Bergeron is a satirical take on the principles of communism. The author

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The Initiation short story follows a pattern where the protagonist is put up to multiple trials and challenges, and in the end when she is so closed to grasp finish the quest that she has longed for for so long,she realizes that she doesn't need to be part of an exclusive social group (Sorority) to belong somewhere. She belonged right there, and not until after all of her conflicts and trials she realize this. It's when she has to make a choice whether to stay as herself or become something else, something that she is not.

The Initiation also follows the standard pattern where you have the Heroine (Millicent), The Quest (Join the Sorority), All of the conflicts (The trials), The Evil enemy (Bev), The handsome prince (Herb Dalton), And once again the Princess (Millicent). Most short stories have this pattern if there is a quest, these elements are most likely to be there. What is somewhat interesting about this story however is that millicent is the heroine and the princess, where she has the qualities of a princess as well as of a hero (more princess I would say).

What I did enjoy was why there were a high school sorority in the first place. As Louise said it was only an "Exclusive social club" than why would every girl in the school want to join such a ridicule thing. Is social...show more content...

"Ghosts and Vampires are never only about ghosts and vampires." (How to read like a professor, pg 18). Thomas Foster is saying that a vampire is might not be as scary as you think he might be. The definition of a vampire is a person who ruthlessly feeds upon others; extortionist. That meaning for example to feed of something, for personal gain. To join a social club to gain popularity. To become friends with popular people to become popular yourself. I am not saying that everyone in the sorority are vampires, but it does have a

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A short–short is a peculiar literary piece. It creates a world, full of characters and wonder in under 2,000 words (roughly 7 pages). Most complete fiction stories are hundreds of pages filled with wonder and conflict. The characters are well developed, as are their back stories. The reader is sucked in and dropped in a world created in the mind of the author. In a short–short you must do just that, but instead of starting a reader in the beginning of the timeline you must drop them in the midst of the storyline. There are many do's and don'ts that must go into writing short–shorts. My first thought was that I would write my short–shorts as flashbacks, but that is nearly impossible to do with the limited word count. A flashback requires you to create the present and then recreate the past with enough detail to keep the reader engaged. Once I came to that conclusion I threw those ideas out. Sadly that left me without any ideas on the type of story that I should create. It wasn't until I was have a discussion with my significant other that he gave me the idea for my first short story presented in this portfolio. This is a unique story, because I brought in a theme from my poetry portfolio and conceptualized it from a different perspective. I decided that I would write a story about morals, but instead of taking it from the cliched right vs wrong point of view, I would take it from the perspective of someone who thought they were doing right even though the rest of the world