Achieving a Perfect Society: "Harrison Bergeron," "The Lottery," and "Those Who Walk Away from Omelas"
"Harrison Bergeron," "The Lottery," and "Those Who Walk Away from Omelas" are stories that examine society and the human desire to make it orderly and just. In each story the method for perfecting society is different, but flawed. In each story the author exaggerates the situation in order to show the ridiculousness of assuming that any good can come of these methods. In each story there is a refusal to see beyond or beneath the superficial appearance of everyday events. This will be examined in each of the three stories.In "Harrison Bergeron," for example, the characters suffer from externally imposed "handicaps." Vonnegut begins the story by exposing a common misunderstanding of the meaning of equality, the idea that nobody can be better than anybody else. The narrator tells us: "They were equal every which way. Nobody was any smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else" (p. 34). The author wants us to see that there will al
People are supposed to be equal in their rights, opportunities, and privileges, whether they are rich or poor, stupid or smart, beautiful or ugly, talented or incompetent. " Society moves in an orderly fashion because people do not think, and order is proof that everything is okay. In some ancient pagan civilizations, sacrificing humans "to the gods" was considered necessary in order to get good crops and ensure fertility. Equality doesn't come from leveling everybody down to the lowest common denominator, and justice is not the result of sacrificing the innocent. ways be people who have more money, better looks, higher intelligence, a better education, and more talent than other people do. And like the characters in "Harrison," nobody questions the need to stone a person once a year at a certain season. Vonnegut makes fun of anti-intellectualism, a very American form of leveling. What most of the people in Omelas believe is similar to the belief that Jesus had to die a terrible death in order to pay for everybody else's sins and that God saw this as "justice. Of the three stories "Those Who Walk Away from Omelas" is perhaps the most disturbing because the sacrifice is not fair. Torturing this child, chaining it to a wall in a dark cellar with no food, no love, and no comfort serves as a "sacrifice" for the good of all. Vonnegut uses the story to expose the myth among Americans that equality, if we ever accomplished it, would mean loss of freedom to excel, succeed, or make a profit. One innocent, helpless child suffers so that everyone else can live a happy, carefree life. In "Harrison" of course, the people are kept from questioning the way things are by the handicaps imposed, whereas in "The Lottery" the people just accept what they have been told and what has always been done.
Common topics in this essay:
Harrison Bergeron,
Walk Omelas,
Lottery Society,
harrison bergeron,
walk omelas,
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Acceptance Essays
