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Harrison Bergeron Equality Essay

625 Words3 Pages

Equality: Valuing our Independence and Freedom What is equality? In the dystopian stories “Harrison Bergeron” and Anthem, the word equality has a totally different meaning than what someone in our society may think. These two stories claim to treat every citizen the same and equal, but characters such as Harrison, or Equality-72521 were treated with disadvantages. In my mind, equality is having the same rights and responsibilities as another person. In “Harrison Bergeron” equality was taken to another level in my opinion. One way they showed equality was by using weights to bring down the people who were physically at an advantage compared to other people in the society. Also, people above average mentally were given a little mental handicap radio in his ear, which brought them down to average. This was tuned to a government transmitter, and would send out sharp noises to affect the use …show more content…

The main character, Equality-72521, lives in a society which freedom and individual rights have been obliterated. Equality is very intelligent, and inquisitive person who seems to be very loyal to the society’s rules and standards. When assigned jobs, he was assigned a street-sweeper, in order to keep him average and not be able to use his intelligence and curiosity. This led to him being even more curious, meeting a girl, and discovering electricity. After weeks of work and trials, he successfully builds a lightbulb. Equality decides he needs to show this invention to the World Council of Scholars, in order to help the society. When he shows his invention to the Council, they reject him and threaten him, causing him to flee and leave the society. Outside of the society with the Golden One, the girl he meets, he finally realizes the true feeling of equality and freedom. By launching a new race of men, who believe in individualism, Equality vows to protect his home and new

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