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Abigail Gonzalez
11 Sep 2015
Mrs. Cruz
English 3

Harrison Bergeron Essay

Then all of a sudden your end comes and all because you tried to be original. It's like a
dead end for you but you wanted to send out a message, at least only for a second because
you knew it wouldnt be longer. This issue is experienced on Kurt Vonnegut Jr 's story, Harrison
Bergeron which showed how miserable life would be in an equal society. He presents a
horrifying view of human society where all citizens are equal meaning that nobody could be
smarter, better, or more attractive than anyone else and that the characteristics that described
you would be seized from you. From the short story "Harrison Bergeron" to the film 2081 there
are multiple similarities, but also as many differences.

In the story, how Harrison is portrayed is different than in the film. The first apparent
difference between the film and the story is that on the short story Kurt Vonnegut Jr stated that
people were scared of him and they made us visualize Harrison as a monster, but in the film he
looked like a normal person. The second most obvious difference is where they describe him on
the television. In the story, they described him as a junkyard by saying that he had so many
handicaps on himself it was hard not seeing him.In the story, He wore a red rubber ball for a
nose, keep his eyebrows shaved off, and cover his white even teeth with black caps at snaggletooth random(123). Whereas in the film they didnt show him in all those handicaps.

But by comparing and contrasting these two sources, it is possible for us to see some
similarities in it aswell. Although they described Harrison differently they both had the same idea
when they showed Harrison as an arrogant person. In the text the quote, Do you hear? I am

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the Emperor! Everyone must do what I say at once! (142), and in the film where he says hes
abomination and that he's the greatest man they've ever known are both proving that he's
confident and arrogant for he has no shame declaring what he had said, and thinks theres no
one better than him to rule the government to make the world better. Another similarity from the
text and the film is that in both, Harrison is somewhat inspirational both in the film and story
when he tricks the general that there's a bomb when he's just really broadcasting piracy so that
the whole world could see what he was about to do and even though he knew that would be the
end for him he still tried showing everyone what it was like to be free and not in all those
handicaps.