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Direct Characterization Of Harrison Bergeron By Kurt Vonnegut

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In the short story “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut, society has been flipped upside down by a corrupt government that has obligated everyone to wear a handicap to limit their strength, intelligence, beauty, etc. The government said that they did this to create a sense of equality among the people, but their true intentions have been inferred that they have done this to control every aspect of society. The story begins in 2081 when Harrison Bergeron is introduced, a character who has a controversial role in the story, but whose handicaps have definitely affected him both mentally and physically. In the story, Harrison is described by using direct and indirect characterization. Direct characterization is when the author describes a character …show more content…

Harrison sees the handicaps for what they truly are, a method of government control. However, society sees the handicaps as a good thing that help create equality. Throughout the story, Harrison struggles to break the shackles that physically and mentally hold society down. Eventually, Harrison removes his own shackles and shows how graceful humans can be without their handicaps, but shortly after everyone forgot because their handicaps made them forget. In “Harrison Bergeron” there are three different types of handicaps, two of which are physical and one is mental. The handicap that affects people mentally is used to scatter thoughts by producing some sort of noise every so often based on your intelligence. This handicap would usually cause short term memory loss. It is unclear how this affected Harrison, but he was probably able to eventually overcome it because he escaped prison. One of the physical handicaps is a mask. This mask is used to hide beauty so that no one is prettier than anyone else. The mask didn't really affect Harrison, but it did surprise everyone who was in room when he took it off. The other physical handicap is a weight or weights based on how strong you are. The weight made it so that everyone has equal strength. This handicap probably had the biggest effect on Harrison because instead of weighing him down, the weights actually just made him stronger. It should now be clear that the conflicts and handicaps from the story shaped Harrison Bergeron as a

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