Handicaps In Harrison Bergeron

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In a utopian society where a community in which highly desirable or nearly perfect standards are met in order to establish equal conditions for its civilians. In the short story of “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut, the government relies on a variety of handicaps in order to bring everyone down to the lowest denominator, which maintains quality, making sure that no one is better than another. However, even with these handicaps, everyone still remained to have the same natural abilities that are clearly present based on their actions throughout the story. Therefore, in the story “Harrison Bergeron”, everyone is not truly equal even under the circumstances of their handicaps. First of all, even though the citizens in 2081 are held under …show more content…
In the text, one can observe that the ballerina has a “warm, luminous, timeless melody” of a voice. Although she was forced to apologize and speak “correctly” in an incomparable voice, Vonnegut is hinting to his readers that even while she was still wearing her handicaps, she is still able to obtain her original voice. Regardless of the inventions that the HG thought of, there was no way to prevent the way someone is born with naturally. Many may claim that by law, she would just continue to pretend that her voice really was incomparable. However, in reality, one’s natural talents and skills that they possess are still present and are just temporarily masked behind their layers of handicaps. Therefore, each individual will still possess their individual strengths, regardless of their restraining handicaps, which are merely concealed, by the law. Finally, the last reason why the people were truly not equal was that some people might not even wear handicaps at all. For instance, Diana Moon Glampers, the handicapper general, and the officials of the government, all are not required to wear handicaps. In order for the society to be truly equal, every single person in the society must be forced to wear them unless you are the lowest denominator like Hazel. Therefore, equality is inexistent in this society due to the fact that the government was able to function
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