Sonja's Reviews > Harrison Bergeron

❛The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal.❜

This was a very interesting short story. Despite the fact that the story is set in a dystopian world, I really enjoyed reading it. I seriously love reading dystopian fiction, schadenfreude at its finest!

The first sentence of the story proclaims that everybody is equal—but as I continued to read on, it quickly became apparent that this “equality” the narrator goes on about could not be further from the truth.

In the world of Harrison Bergeron, equality is enforced by the Handicapper General and her agents. So in reality everybody isn’t equal at all, because the very existence of the General undermines the whole idea of equality. How can everybody be equal when she possesses power and authority over everyone else?

The whole system collapses in on itself if you think about it for even a single moment, which is most likely why the inhabitants of this dystopian world are prevented from thinking intelligent thoughts..

OVERALL

Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron pokes fun at those who seek to achieve absolute equality. Utopias do not exist, try hard enough to forcefully create one and you might just end up with a dystopia..

This entire story reminded me of the most famous quote from Animal Farm:

❛All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.❜