Satire In Harrison Bergeron

Comparing and contrasting 2081 to Harrison Bergeron Admit it, one time you were bored or sat down with nothing to do and couldn’t help but imagine how life would be if everyone was equal, don’t even try denying it, you’ve thought of that at least once in your life, but as any good writer would do, they’d write their thoughts down and turn it into a story, that’s exactly what Kurt Vonnegut did. Just imagine living a life where no one gets compared to others in any way. We all wish for a society like that, but Kurt showed us how equality can negatively affect our society. But that’s not the our main idea in this essay, our main idea is to highlight the comparisons and contrasts between the story “Harrison Bergeron” and the movie version “2081”. To begin with, Both the story and the movie had the same introduction/ Opening; “Everybody was finally equal.

"Two years in prison and two thousand dollars fine for every ball I took out," said George. (Vonnegut 2). This could cause unhappiness because the people in the community can’t relax or be themselves because they get fined for it. George was also smart so he had a buzzer in his ear that rings different really loud sounds every about 20 seconds. Harrison Bergeron is George’s son and he broke the rules and took off his handicaps then got taken away, from then on he was very dangerous because he was strong and without his handicaps, he was the strongest of all.

By Preston being able to feel emotions, he realizes that killing sense offenders, destroying anything that allows people to feel emotion, and Prozium. By the resistance movement destroying everything that relates to emotions, it eliminates anything that relates to happiness and the ability to have emotion. This causes Preston to realize that without the Prozium, he is truly unhappy with the way the society is. The societies remain oblivious into realizing their unhappiness because they have never felt happiness which contribute to them not realizing that they are

In the short story, “Harrison Bergeron”, by Kurt Vonnegut, Hazel quotes, “That’s alright, he tried. That’s the big thing. He tried to do the best he could with what God gave him,”(Vonnegut, 371). This is a perfect example of how this dystopian society treats competition. This story is about a society where everyone is forced to be equal because the government terrorizes it citizens.

Holden states that he misses Stradlater and Ackley, even though, he picked fights with both of them. Holden emphasizes “Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody” (234). This quote shows how much Holden has matured by the end of the book. Throughout the whole book, Holden calls most of the characters a “phony.” In terms of Holden, phony means people who acts fake and are hypocrites.

If forced to live a “normal” life, he believes he would put everyone (coworkers and family alike) in harm's way. Soldiers and vets try to find other ways of coping with war memories in order to better fit into “normal” life. Often these coping mechanisms are unhealthy or detrimental to the veterans’ recovery process: “Pain makes the nightmares go away. There's not enough pills or booze to make the nightmares go away, but….If I get hurt bad it helps the nightmares go away faster" (Shay 9). Many veterans would resort to violence or illegal substances to try and distract them from the reality of not being able to fit in like they used to.

Personal Freedom vs Intellectual Holocaust In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, Montag’s desire for personal freedom constantly conflicts with the ongoing intellectual holocaust. During this era, society discourages the opportunity to think independently because they live under the impression that “not everyone [is] born free and equal, as the constitution says, but made equal” (Bradbury 146) Many technological advancements evolve to occupy everyone and society enforces many rules to ensure that everyone lives equally. However, Montag meets Clarisse, who exposes him to her extroverted lifestyle and encouraged him to question his lifestyle. He soon realizes that he is not happy and the desire for a new life advances him to seek both personal and intellectual freedom. As a result of the desire for uniformity, society removes the majority of the freedom that characters can have.

It’s because the world he lives in has affected him in such a way to be like this. In Kurt Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron, certain devices weigh down the main character in order to equalize him with the others. This short story is dystopian; an offshoot to Orwell’s utopian world. Winston too is weighed down by his own society; he is forced to be a lesser version of himself, all for Big Brother. They don’t do anything to physically change him, but if he is thought to break the rules or is simply too smart for his own good, off to the Ministry of Love.

Modern sentencing practices are outrageous and out of control. People go to prison for 162 years for stealing a car or 25 to life just for simply making a mistake of leaving their child in the car for no longer than 20 minutes without killing or harming the child. Even the innocent get sentenced major years for crimes they didn’t even commit. Lately sentencing has been crazy, so at this point in time sentence reforming is relevant in this case. To begin with, sentence reforming needs to take place because people are getting way to many years for petty crimes they didn't commit.

Elie Wiesel performed the speech “The Perils of Indifference” and explained his aversion for people who were not helping others in need. These authors showed how indifference in the world takes away humanity and takes away the basic rights of every human being. Both authors hope to use their literature to change how people see the victims of brutality around

When, His brother Randy , the leader of the scorpions, gets sent to jail, jamal a 12 year old boy needs to get five hundred dollars to get him out. The scorpions are a group of drug dealers. When Randy goes to jail, Jamal is offered the leadership role with his friend Tito by his side. Will he be up for the challenge. His Mama says to stay away from the scorpions because she says she doesn’t want him to end like his brother.

If people didn’t get bothered than they would be happy and not know what to expect, because if no one in the entire world got bothered they wouldn 't have the knowing of how to be an actual human. In the book Fahrenheit 451 I am pretty sure that all the characters got bothered so when something happened they were use to it and didn’t get that worked up over it. So when Millie left Montag he was sad but later found out that he did not want anything to do with her. Therefore if people do get bothered they will so figure out what they don 't need and why the thing that happened is a good thing, that no one can change. You just have to keep living you life and see things on the positive side.

Prisoners walk out of the gates hoping for a “new life”, but the criminal justice system prevents that. These people have little to nothing, even less than they had before they ended up in prison. A man named Glenn Ford, who served 30 years appeared on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver to explain his story of being exonerated, “Glenn Ford was given a 20 dollar gift card the day he left Angola prison.” This 20 dollar gift card only lasted Glenn a single meal. Now think about this, Glenn was pardoned from his crimes and only received 20 dollars and was told this is a new start. This wasn’t a new start for him because that 's not even close to enough to be able to sustain himself.