Compare And Contrast Harrison Bergeron And Anthem
onPatrick Mills
24, October 2012
Singleton
English II Honors Should individuality and knowledge ever be suppressed? Some people might think so in order to create a more socially “equal” world. However if society were to act in such a way it would cause a major step back in the development that people have worked so hard to achieve. After all, isn’t it every country’s goal to find new advancements to better life in today’s modern civilization? In some parts of the globe there are governments that attempt to limit and control their country’s people both physically and mentally. Both Ayn Rand and Kurt Vonnegut imply how if these governments were taken to such an extreme level of totalitarianism it would crumble that government’s people in their stories Anthem and “Harrison Bergeron”. Physically handicapping people is the number one way to enslave them, as dictated by …show more content…
In Anthem the workers are held to a tight schedule “when the bell rings we rise from our beds…half-hour while we dress and eat breakfast…then we go to work…in five hours we return to eat our midday meal…five more hours we return for our dinner…then we walk in a straight line for the social meeting” (Rand 27). This kind of schedule is similar to that of a prison routine, which enforces the thought that they are enslaved. Keeping the workers to this kind of agenda also gives them no freedom of choice or any reason to be excited when they wake up in the morning. Another way that the Council enslaves the people in the city is “The Great Transgression of Preference, to love any among men better than the other, since we must love all men and all men are our friends” (Rand 30). Not being able to have friends makes the people in this fantasy society feel alone and unable to share
24, October 2012
Singleton
English II Honors Should individuality and knowledge ever be suppressed? Some people might think so in order to create a more socially “equal” world. However if society were to act in such a way it would cause a major step back in the development that people have worked so hard to achieve. After all, isn’t it every country’s goal to find new advancements to better life in today’s modern civilization? In some parts of the globe there are governments that attempt to limit and control their country’s people both physically and mentally. Both Ayn Rand and Kurt Vonnegut imply how if these governments were taken to such an extreme level of totalitarianism it would crumble that government’s people in their stories Anthem and “Harrison Bergeron”. Physically handicapping people is the number one way to enslave them, as dictated by …show more content…
In Anthem the workers are held to a tight schedule “when the bell rings we rise from our beds…half-hour while we dress and eat breakfast…then we go to work…in five hours we return to eat our midday meal…five more hours we return for our dinner…then we walk in a straight line for the social meeting” (Rand 27). This kind of schedule is similar to that of a prison routine, which enforces the thought that they are enslaved. Keeping the workers to this kind of agenda also gives them no freedom of choice or any reason to be excited when they wake up in the morning. Another way that the Council enslaves the people in the city is “The Great Transgression of Preference, to love any among men better than the other, since we must love all men and all men are our friends” (Rand 30). Not being able to have friends makes the people in this fantasy society feel alone and unable to share