Revision of a Paragraph in our "Short Works Essay"

For this blog post, we are asked to revise a paragraph from our "Short Works Essay". My whole essay is posted on my blog a few posts down.

My original paragraph(directly from the essay):
                  As the story progresses, the symbols come to symbolize progress, specifically how progress is halted when all people care about is absolute equality that is created by the handicaps. While the couple is watching TV “George [is] toying with the vague notion that maybe dancers shouldn't be handicapped” (Vonnegut 1).   However, as soon as he tried to make progress, or evolve, his thoughts the mental handicap sounded. Consequently, the notion “[doesn't] get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts” (Vonnegut 1).  George’s mental handicap limits his ability to form advanced thoughts that could and most likely will lead to progress, and his ear radio will always ruin and diffuse his potentially intelligent comment. Most people are masked by these handicaps, making them unaware of the side effects, especially no progress, which leaves them bewildered and perplexed when the handicaps disrupt relationships. Yet, some people will also recognize those side effects and take action to break free of these handicaps, in the form of relationships to mock the fact that handicaps, the sound in George’s ear and the ballerina’s weights, can break down relationships. Before people could understand what will happen when there is no progress, it starts to disrupt relationships.

My Revised Paragraph:                  
                 As the story progresses, the symbols come to represent the halting of progress, particularly when all people care about is absolute equality that is created by the handicaps. While the couple is watching TV “George [is] toying with the vague notion that maybe dancers shouldn't be handicapped” (Vonnegut 1).   However, as soon as he tries to make progress, or evolve, his thoughts the mental handicap sounded. Consequently, the notion “[doesn't] get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts” (Vonnegut 1). Most people are masked by these handicaps, making them unaware of the side effects. The most obvious side effect of the handicaps is progress halting.  Yet, some people will also recognize those side effects and take action to break free of these handicaps. Vonnegut makes Harrison one of the people who notice the burden of equality and how it can halt progress. To Vonnegut, the only way to break free of equality is to ultimately break down relationships. 

The Whole Essay!

Refer to the last blog posts for the prompt/outline.
Well, here it is the whole shebang!

Handicaps as Symbols in “Harrison Bergeron”

The symbols, George’s sound in his ear, and the ballerina’s weights, are used by Vonnegut in his short story, “Harrison Bergeron” to create absolute, forced equality in his futuristic community. At the beginning, the symbols show the burden of complete, forced equality and then how progress is halted when all people care about is utter equality. Later, the symbols show how the handicaps, now representing the affliction of absolute equality and the rarity of progress, create problems with relationships.Vonnegut is able to the use symbols, the sound in George’s ear and the ballerina’s weights, to show how complete equality has a negative effect on the progress of thoughts, relationships, can prohibit excellence.

At the start of the story, the physical handicaps, weights on the ballerinas, and the mental handicaps, the sounds in George’s ear,represent the burden of absolute, enforced equality. George and Hazel are watching ballerinas dance beautifully on TV at the beginning of the story. To keep all of the ballerina’s dancing equal they “were burdened with sashweights and bags of birdshot” (Vonnegut 1).  Not only do they have to bear those weights while they are dancing, it is a burden because of the enforced equality. The physical handicaps that were imposed on the dancers, show the onus the enforced equality.

Moreover, the mental handicap in George’s ear is placed there so “people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains” (Vonnegut 1).   Vonnegut describes George as having above-average intelligence. However, in this futuristic utopia, above-average is not okay, unless everyone is. Consequently George’s intelligence made him have “a little mental handicap radio in his ear,” (Vonnegut 1) and “would send out some sharp noise” (Vonnegut 1) to prevent un-equality in intelligence and eventually the progression of thoughts. Since the above average intelligence is unable to think about things in depth, only the surface of the topic is brushed and is unable to make connections to create progress. The handicaps enable equality, but disable the ability to form complex comments that will eventually lead to the development of even more elaborate comments, all because of forced, later unwanted, equality.   

As the story progresses, the symbols come to symbolize progress, specifically how progress is halted  when all people care about is absolute equality that is created by the handicaps. While the couple is watching TV when the ballerinas were on “George [is] toying with the vague notion that maybe dancers shouldn’t be handicapped” (Vonnegut 1).   However, as soon as he tried to make progress, or evolve,  his thoughts the mental handicap sounded. Consequently, the notion “didn’t get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts” (Vonnegut 1).  George’s mental handicap limits his ability to form advanced thoughts that could and most likely will  lead to progress, and his ear radio will always ruin and diffuse his potentially intelligent comment. Most people are masked by these handicaps, making them unaware of the side effects, especially no progress, which leaves them bewildered and perplexed when the handicaps disrupt relationships . Yet, some people will also recognize those side effects and take action to break free of these handicaps, in the form of relationships to mock the fact that handicaps, the sound in George’s ear and the ballerina’s weights, can break down relationships.

When the end of the story arrives, the symbols finally illustrate the harm to relationships and the rebellion of the handicaps through the creation of other relations. In attempt to rally the rebellion, Harrison picked a ballerina from the crowd and “plucked the mental handicap from her ear, snapped off her physical handicaps with marvelous delicacy” (Vonnegut 5). He removed all of the ballerina’s handicaps and declared her his Empress to rebel against the government and show that absolute equality is useless. By Harrison taking off the ballerina’s weights, he creates a relationship as “Harrison and his Empress” and enables rebellion. 

In another instance after the couple watched the horror of Harrison on TV, a relationship was destroyed; the connection was lost between Harrison and his parents. George goes to get a drink and comes back to Hazel crying and says to “‘forget sad things,’ said George. ‘I always do,’ said Hazel’” (Vonnegut 6) and then promptly heard, “the sound of a riveting gun in his head” (Vonnegut 6). In the first part of the quote, George was telling Hazel to forget Harrison dying on TV. At this point the  relationship and connection between Harrison and his parents is destroyed. When George hears the sound of a gun, it emphasizes the fact that the mental handicap ruins any hope of reconnecting with his son, and even the mourning over the death of Harrison. 

Vonnegut uses this story mock absolute equality. He is trying to tell us that when everybody is equal, it will be horrible,not worth it and that people should focus their energy somewhere else, such as trying to create progress and increase the complexity of their thoughts. Through the symbols, he shows the reader that equality is harmful and that there should be people who are better than the average and even people who are below average. By not limiting what people can accomplish, like removing the handicaps in the story, it will eventually demonstrate to us how excellence can better the prosperity.

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Revised Intro and outline to Short Works Essay

Here is a revised introduction and outline to the Short Works essay mentioned in the last post.

The symbols, George’s sound in his ear, and the ballerina’s weights, are used by Vonnegut in his short story, “Harrison Bergeron” to create absolute, forced equality in his futuristic community. The symbols show the burden of the involuntary, complete parity, and how progress is seized when there is utter equality. Later, the symbols show how the handicaps, now representing the affliction of absolute equality and the rarity of progress, create problems with relationships. Vonnegut is able to use symbols, the sound in George’s ear and the ballerina’s weights, to show how outright impartiality has a negative effect on the progress of thoughts, relationships,  and can prohibit excellence.

Outline:

I.                   At the start of the story, the physical handicaps, weights on the ballerinas, and the mental handicaps, the sounds in George’s ear, represent the burden of absolute, enforced equality.

a.       “They were burdened with sashweights and bags of birdshot.”

b.      “And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear”

c.       “the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains”

II.                As the story progresses, the symbols come to symbolize progress, specifically how no progress is made with absolute equality created by the handicaps.

a.       “But he didn’t get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts.”

b.      “George was toying with the notion that maybe dancers shouldn’t be handicapped.”

III.             When the end of the story arrived, the symbols finally illustrate the harm to relationships and the rebellion of the handicaps through the creation of other relationships.

a.       “George came back in with the beer, paused while a handicap signal shook him up. And then he sat down again. "You been crying" he said to Hazel… "Forget sad things," said George. "I always do," said Hazel. "That's my girl," said George. He winced. There was the sound of a rivetting gun in his head.”

b.      “Harrison plucked the mental handicap from her ear, snapped off her physical handicaps with marvelous delicacy.”

Introduction to the Short Works Essay

In my English class we were given an essay that we will write overtime with an elaborate process. The prompt is to chose one author's text that we read for summer reading and explain how this writer utilizes one of the following literary tools-- characterization, symbolism, irony, tone-- to make a comment or pose a question about the challenges we face when trying to live as individuals in the world.

I chose to write about the symbolism in "Harrison Bergeron" By Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

For this blog post we are required to post our introduction of the essay.

My introduction:

Vonnegut in his short story, “Harrison Bergeron” is creating a community where everyone is absolutely equal; nobody is more exceptional or better looking than another. If person has special brain power, they get a sharp noise sent to them at random times in the day so they will not use their brain to an advantage. In this futuristic culture, equality was prized and handicaps, like the sharp noises sent to exceptional brains, were placed on people that the higher authorities thought would be better than anyone else, to keep complete parity. Vonnegut satirizes the fact that everyone should be equal and uses the symbol of handicaps to portray his stance on the topic. The symbol, handicaps, is used by Vonnegut to contribute to the absolute equality in a large group of people, so that Vonnegut can satirize how equality can hurt us, which consequently creates people who resist the handicaps, and with these handicaps it hinders the ability of other individuals to recollect the memory of those rebels who are skeptical of the norm and strive for a change in the system.   

Favorite Summer Reading

Hi bloggers! My name is Rachael and you have arrived at my blog. This is a blog about literature and my position and view on works of writing. Hope you enjoy & rachael-ize (realize) something new or interesting!

This summer I read a large amount of short stories and poems for the upcoming English 2 year, and I guarantee that I read all of them, don't worry. While I read them, I was struck by a plethora of emotions, they were all quality pieces of literature, I assure you. But of all the texts, I really connected with the short story, "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. because of the satirical nature of the story. For some reason, I enjoy making make believe situations that make fun of the current or past scenes, sort of like what happens in "Harrison Bergeron". Maybe I'm a reincarnation of Vonnegut, but I probably don't want to be, well that's a whole other can of worms(maybe a topic for a later post......).

But I digress.
This story in set in the future where everyone is equal to the point where "nobody was better looking than anybody else" Now, that would suck, like how would you have beauty pageants?! Oh, wait, that means we could all be America's Next Top Model! Maybe this isn't so bad after all...

However, at the end of the story, because of all of the equality, the main character, Harrison, gets killed. By this the author is trying to show society how bad things can be when everyone is equal, and that there should be some people in the world that are better or worse than you. Annnnnnnd life will go on- I promise- if someone gets a better grade than you on the biggest test of the year. 

What really struck me as interesting was the fact that the government put handicaps on exceptional people so that they would not take "unfair advantage of their brains". 
(The picture below depicts the fashioning of a handicap) 

This caught my attention because in today's world its the bright minds that will exceed the unimaginable and people, especially teachers or coaches, will nurture and help those with exceptional talents to go above and beyond. Maybe someday those without 'handicaps' or have broken free of their handicaps with exceptional intelligence and talent will teach us how to find a corner of a circle--that could be all of us.

So, let's all try. Shall we?