The society that the story "Harrison Bergeron" portrays, is one with no passion, no spirit, merely one with no individuality. Kurt Vonnegut Jr. does a great job in satirizing the American political system. Stanley Schatt notices this in his biography of Vonnegut, where he states that Vonnegut writes "political fables that satirize the American political and this country's relationship with both China and the Soviet Union"(133). The people of this society take the notion equality to a level that could not even be feasible in any person's imagination. In an attempt to make people equal, handicaps are distributed among people. These handicaps range from little mental handicap radios in more intellectual people's heads to metal or other heavy foreign objects to slow the stronger people. With these handicaps the people are unable to do things that might be simple without the handicaps. This attempt at equality that comes about, makes America a dictatorship rather than a democracy. It also lowers the quality of living in America along with the competition level that America has with the rest of the world. Besides, there is no possible way to make everyone equal in everyday life. Withou

t individuality, there would not be any free thinkers and no dreams to accomplish anything special. Vonnegut uses satire to mock the American political system.

Where would we be today if we did not have a thought process for more than a few minutes? Where would we be if we forgot something like what we were saying right before the interruption every single time we were interrupted? We would not have made it to the moon, probably would not have even tried to get to the moon. Without a complete thought process there would not be anybody to stopping people from committing crimes. With the physical handicaps there would not be any competition between people in athletic events. People would not try to get into shape, which probably would lead to an early death for many individuals. The only exercise that people would get is if they did have the handicap on their strength. This would be due to the fact that after time they would merely get used to the extra weight on them. After they were used to the extra weight on them, the Handicapper General would have to order more weight added to them. In the end without competition between individuals life as we know it would decline and people would not live as long as they do today.

Vonnegut Jr., Kurt. "Harrison Bergeron". The Short Story and Its Writers: An Intro to Short Fiction, Fifth Edition. Ed. Ann Charters. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 1999. 1332-1335.

In "Harrison Bergeron" the political system has taken the "Declaration of Independence" and attempted to intertwine it with the Constitution. This however is not possible, since the "Declaration of Independence" was written in ridding the new Americans of the hold that the English had on them. The Constitution was written to have laws and order in the country. The "Declaration of Independence" speaks of "All men are created equal...", this is saying that in the eyes of the law everyone is created equal. The people in this society have taken it to the extreme, having it mean that everyone is equal in all aspects of life to accompany equality in the law. The Constitution started with amendments that gave every citizen certain rights that could not be taken from him or her. This society took those amendments and added to them to make everyone equal in all areas of

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1546
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)