Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron" -- A story symbolic of the oppression inherent in society, and the depths to which it pervades our lives through the media, politics, and popular culture.

The first time I read Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s "Harrison Bergeron", I was a freshman at community college. After a quick skim, I took it to be yet another short story about a perverse kind of utopian society sacrificing some basic human right or another in order to keep the peace. I was then compelled to read it again after watching Bruce Pittman's movie adaptation of the story on television. After reading the story a …

…Huxley and Orwell took entire novels to illustrate. "Harrison Bergeron" encourages its reader to cast a critical eye on what our country's culture has become, to realize the startling parallels contained within it, and to realize with appropriate trepidation the potential America has for degenerating into Vonnegut's imagined society. Works Cited          Charters, Ann. ed. The Story and its Writer : An Introduction to Short Fiction                   6th Edition, New York 2003. Harrison Bergeron, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 1961 pp. 1354-1358