Jonathan's paragraph on Harrison Bergeron

 Observation of Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron”

My initial reaction to Kurt Vonnegut’s dystopian short story “Harrison Bergeron,” was of thinking that it was positively bizarre, though from what I’ve read from his novel The Breakfast of Champions, I know that this sort of style is typical of him. It was a curious story particularly in the fact that he had used the utopian concept of everyone being equal to create a dystopian environment.

In a sense, no one is equal at all however, because that people’s handicaps are equal and opposite to their natural abilities and features, displayed very clearly in the case of the ballerina, whom the narrator observed “must have been extraordinarily beautiful, because the mask she wore was hideous.” The idea behind limiters and handicaps to make people equal is nonsense of course, as they don’t make anyone equal, they just make everyone only as good as the worst person on record. In other words, nobody can really do anything. And should anyone anywhere try to remove their handicaps, Handicapper General Diana Moon Glampers can illogically show up no matter where they are and kill anyone who might be better at anything than anyone else.It’s her responsibility to ensure the stupefyingly horrific advent of talent can’t contaminate the world once more.

Like I said, the story is bizarre. However, it’s also very effective for the same reason.