Harsh Control Theme in Literature Essay Sample

đź“ŚCategory: Literature
đź“ŚWords: 1096
đź“ŚPages: 4
đź“ŚPublished: 19 June 2022

Many dystopian stories share an array of aspects such as the elements used throughout the story. The stories may be about a man by himself in the world or one of total control by some kind of power and they will share some dystopian elements. The Perfect Match, The Pedestrian, and Harrison Bergeron each illustrate the elements that the citizens of the story are under harsh control, the citizens of the story are dehumanized, and the citizens worship some kind of figurehead.

In all three stories, the element of citizens being under some kind of harsh control is shown throughout. In “The Perfect Match” by Ken Liu, everyone has an artificial intelligence from the company Centillion. The AI Tilly knows so much about people’s lives that it gives the company an immense amount of power, and if someone were to go against the company their works, whether it be a post on social media or videos, are silenced by the company and never seen by the public. The short story states, “No one would believe you. We will make so that whatever you say, whatever you write, no one will ever find it. On the net, if it can’t be found by Centillion, it doesn’t exist.” No matter what someone would say against Centillionit would not matter because it falls on deaf ears. Centillion wants to stay in control and to make sure no one hears bad things about them so they do whatever they can to keep their reputation high. Harsh control is also shown in The Pedestrian. Everyone in the story, except for one man, stays inside watching television. And the government wants this because it is easier to control people. For example, The Pedestrian states, “The back door of the police car sprang wide. ‘Get in.’ ‘Wait a minute, I haven’t done anything’ ‘Get in’” When someone is not watching television it is harder to control them, like him saying he hadn’t done anything wrong. The government wants them to stay inside so it is easier for them to do anything they want. Additionally, the element of control is shown in the short story Harrison Bergeron. In the story they want everyone to be equal no matter what it takes. They do whatever it takes to make everyone equal. The story states, “ Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.” The government has such a control on people that they can make them wear a radio transmitter in their ear, and play noises so that they cannot think freelee and cannot go against the government. Throughout all of the stories the element of control is shown, and shows that elements are carried throughout dystopian stories.

Another element shown throughout different Dystopian stories is the dehumanization of citizens. For example, the perfect match dehumanizes its characters by controlling what they think. The short story states, “‘Tilly doesn’t just tell you what you want,’ Jenny shouted. ‘She tells you what to think. Do you even know what you really want any more?’” The AI Tilly tells someone exactly what they want to hear, it knows them so well it tells them what they want to hear so well that a person would not question it. Another example of dehumanization is shown in the pedestrian, “ …it was not unequal to walking through a graveyard where only the finest glimmers of firefly light appeared in flickers behind the windows.” The author could have described the individuals in the houses as a normal person, and they could have described the walking as normal walking. But, they used words like graveyard, making the people in the houses seem as if they were undead rather than being alive. Furthermore, the element of dehumanization is shown again in the story Harrison Bergeron. The short story says, “ And to offset his good looks, the H-G men required he wear at all times a red rubber ball for a nose, keep his eyebrows shaved off, and cover his even white teeth with black caps at snaggle-tooth random.” One think that makes one person very different from another person  is physical appearance. In this world the government tries to make everyone equal in every dimension, even with how someone looks. When the government in this story makes everyone look equally ugly, they are dehumanizing them because they are taking away the key aspect of a person. Each of the stories show the element of dehumanization, even though they are all based around very different worlds.

Finally, in all three stories the element of some kind of figure head being worshipped. For example, in the story The Perfect Match, the artificial intelligence Tilly is held very high in society. “Having Tilly around was like having the world's best assistant:” In the main character's mind, having Tilly around was a dream come true, just like the story said it was the best assistant. By him calling it the best, he is saying that there is nothing better than the AI, that no other person could top it or do what it does better. Another example of a figure head being worshipped is in The Pedestrian. The story says, “In ten years of walking by night or day, for thousands of miles, he had never met another person walking, not once in all that time.” The story never directly says why the civilians in the story are always inside, it does give clues leading to them watching television. The people of this story hold televisions so high in society that the main character had never seen another person out of their house walking. The only time he has seen them is when they look out their window to look at him. He had walked thousands of miles and never seen one person walking like he does. The element is also seen in Harrison Bergeron. “‘If I tried to get away with it,’ said George, ‘then other people’d get away with it- and pretty soon we’d be right back to the dark ages again, with everybody competing against everybody else. You wouldn’t like that, would you?’” The idea of everyone being equal is held so high, that the time when everybody wasn’t forced to be equal is called the ‘dark ages’. The people are so intuned and in love with the idea of total equality that they would do anything to achieve it, even if it means they are not as well off. The element of worshipping some kind of figure head is shown throughout the stories and is very prominent in all of them. Showing that dystopian stories share a connection in their elements.

The three stories, The Perfect Match, The Pedestrian, and Harrison Bergeron, all show the elements of control, the dehumanization of individuals, and the worshipping of a figurehead. Dystopian stories share many different elements, no matter what the story is about. If many elements are shown in a dystopian story, there is a good chance that another story shares  the same components.

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