Heavy Dose of Harrison

After a quick review of irony and satire we took a head first dive into "Harrison Bergeron" to understand Harrison's motivation and level of success.

We also tried to figure out what we could about Kurt Vonnegut by what he offered in the writing.

The story is obviously taking the idea of equality to the extreme making equality look ridiculous.  So does that mean Vonnegut is against equality?

Yet at the end the man who wanted to get rid of equality is dead and the woman who supported equality is alive.  Things also return to "normal".  Does that mean Vonnegut was for equality?

The story was written in 1961 during the burgeoning Civil Rights movement.  Was Vonnegut trying to say something about the black struggle for equality?

The key line in the text has Harrison saying, "'Now watch me become what I can become!'" So does Vonnegut support personal freedom without limits?

He seems to be mocking the doomsayers and the extremists.  Is he against them?

Another thing to consider is what Vonnegut is satirizing in the story.

Lots to talk about in class today.

Now for tomorrow, the honors classes have three quotes to read and think about.  They need to be able to connect the quote to the story and write about it fluidly.  Tonight you thin.  Tomorrow you write.  Here are the quotes.

 1) If liberty and equality are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government the utmost.

-Aristotle

2) Equality, rightly understood as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences; wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads to conformity and then despotism.

-Barry Goldwater

3) Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact.

-Honore de Balzac

Until next time...