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Harrison Bergeron And The Pedestrian Analysis

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Harrison Bergeron and The Pedestrian: Equality and Conformity Imagine you are the exact same person as everyone else, living under an oppressive government, in a dystopian society. Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut and The Pedestrian by Ray Bradbury both envelop dystopian societies. In Harrison Bergeron, Vonnegut establishes a dystopian society where a totalitarian government handicaps the talented and controls all aspects of every citizen 's life. In The Pedestrian, Bradbury describes a society where everyone stays inside watching television because a totalitarian government believes this is the best way to progress in society. These governments instill conformity through the use of force, consequently causing society to lose its individuality. Vonnegut and Bradbury’s warning against the dangers of conformity and equality from their stories is that these substantives lead to the loss of individuality, making the government too powerful. Conformity and total equality in both stories show one of the drawbacks to dystopian societies—citizens can’t live their lives freely and individually. Without individual thoughts and opinions, humans are not their unique selves. In Harrison Bergeron, George was daydreaming on the couch when, “He began to think glimmeringly about his abnormal son who was now in jail, about Harrison, but a twenty-one-gun salute in his …show more content…

Harrison Bergeron by Vonnegut and The Pedestrian by Bradbury warn readers about the dangers of conformity and total equality through a loss of individuality in society and the cruelty of a totalitarian government. In today’s society, some countries’ citizens are lucky to have individual freedom. It is a blessing to be able to be whoever you want to be, but conformity and total equality can ruin that. Vonnegut and Bradbury portray this warning in Harrison Bergeron and The Pedestrian by describing societies where citizens aren’t blessed and must live under oppressive governments enforcing conformity and total

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