An Essay on a Short Story from the "Riverside Reader"

Harrison Bergeron By Kurt Vonnegut
"The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal," the story begins. "They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal in every which way." In this haunting story, Vonnegut probably wanted to warn our society of similar kind of equality, equality that can be fatal for human race. In this work the theme is only a minor feature and is not really developed. The idea probably intrigued Kurt Vonnegut and forced him to develop it into a short story. Those who are familiar with Kurt Vonnegut's writing will certainly recognize some other themes of this story. For example the fear of de-humanization of human beings, being stuck in amber (Harrisons inability to overthrow the system) and so forth. In "Harrison Bergeron", Kurt Vonnegut presented a scary view of a future society, where everyone was equal. "Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else."

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