Inequality In Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron

Aristotle once said, “The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.” In Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron,” the government attempts to create equality between all individuals, and unfortunately, propitiously succeeds. The equality laws state that all of mankind must be identical to each other in terms of appearance and knowledge. Intelligent beings are handicapped with a monitor in their ear which emits caustic sounds every twenty seconds or so, to wreck their train of thought. Charming and good-looking individuals are forced to wear a paper bag over their heads, or are told to physically ridicule certain parts of their face. Graceful people wear bags of birdshot on their backs to weigh them down, and strong people are weakened in the same manner. As a result, the society is supposedly “equal.” However, citizens are suffering physically due to their handicaps, everyone has been degraded to the lowest intelligence and ability
Citizens go through pain to have the rules carried out, the abilities and knowledge of all human beings is lowered to a state of absurdity, and one of humans’ main natural instincts (survival by competition) is completely, utterly, destroyed. In fact, the entire idea of trying to make all human beings equal in every single possible way, is very inaccurate because although people may not realize it, complete equality, is impossible to achieve. No matter how many beings suffer, no matter how many beings are handicapped, no matter how many times the government tries to get rid of the aspect of competition, full equality will never be attained. Thus, in Kurt Vonnegut’s dystopian short story, the laws depicted by the government are flawed. Although equality may grow like a flower, with water and nutrients being supplied by the government’s laws, the flower will never blossom, and there is no doubt to