Essay About Dire Story And United States

A Dire Society, a Dire Story
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Justin Millerson
Mr. Young
ENG 4U1
18 September 2006
A Dire Society, a Dire Story
Natural curiosity leads people to make predictions on how their country
could be run in the future Whether they are good or bad predictions depends
entirely on the individual. Kurt Vonnegut the Writer in this story, describes what
his idea of the government in the Future would be. Harrison Bergeron is a short
story of a possible government ideology presented in everyday life in the year
2081. The ideology is presented in the United States, a non-communist country
in which this storys government is loosely based on. The philosophy of the
government demonstrates that all citizens in the country are of equal status in
everyway possible. This is controlled by “handicaps.” Handicaps in this story are
attachments to your body that shade your advantage in anyway to the average
person. The author chose few characters and a short length to exhibit his story.
After reading this story, it is not unfair to say that Kurt Vonneguts Harrison
Bergeron was unrealistic and was a dire story. The story did not appeal to the
reader for reasons that are simple. The government presented was unfitting for
the United States, the contradiction in the authors writing and the fact of
perplexity. The only understanding in the story is the explanation; it failed to
reach the satisfaction for the reader.
The story Harrison Bergeron showed direness in the way of an unrealistic
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government in the United States. Since the Cold War, the United States has
been a strong anti-communist. The government demonstrated in this story shows
a striking resemblance to communism in how the citizens are portrayed as equal
and also in how there is a higher power controlling the citizens. They do this by
using “handicaps.” This was caused “due to the 211th 212th and 213th
Amendments to the constitution” (Vonnegut 1). A government of this kind in the
United States is very impractical due to the simple fact that the United States is a
liberal nation and shows no traits of a drastic transition. This is a very bad quality
to the story; a story has to be believable in order to please the reader. The story
shows bad qualities in other ways throughout.
Secondly, the story showed bad qualities through the authors
contradiction in his writing. The author wrote that everybody was finally equal.
This is not true and it is shown in two ways. It is shown through the description of
the Handicap General. It is described that the “Handicap General came in to a
studio with a double barrel ten gage shot gun” (6) shooting and threatening
citizens of a future United States. It is obvious that this Handicap General is the
minority in the equal nation. It is obvious that this General has more power.
Contradiction is also shown within the “equal” citizens. As mentioned before, a
citizen with an advantage was created equal by the handicaps. This quote
explains that these people with the handicaps suffered in many ways and were
punished for their gifts from God and also these citizens are hardly treated equal.
And George, while his intelligence was way above
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Normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear.
He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was
Tuned to a government