Themes of Equality and Individualism in Harrison Bergeron and 2081 Movie

📌Category: Entertainment, Literature, Movies
📌Words: 427
📌Pages: 2
📌Published: 11 April 2022

While the handicaps from Kurt Vonnegut’s short story “Harrison Bergeron'' express the theme of the story, the handicaps in the movie 2081 express the theme more clearly and visually. The effects of the handicaps elevate both the movie’s and story's themes of equality and individualism. In the story, George is Harrison Bergeron’s father. Unfortunately, George is required to wear handicaps at all times to make him equal to the rest of the population. George really misses his son, who was arrested because he wasn't equal to everyone else. In the story, his handicaps are described when the author states, “George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required to wear it at all times… the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.” (Vonnegut par. 3). One way this expresses the theme of equality is that because his intelligence was above normal he had to wear a handicap to make him equal to everyone, but that is not good because even though everyone is equal the average intelligence is very low and that causes people to not be able to think and that takes away individualism. Although the story expresses the theme of equality and individualism it could have expressed it better like in the movie 2081. In the movie 2081, George is required to wear an earpiece that functions the same as in the story but his weights are sleeker than the weights in the story.  One major difference between the story and the movie is that in the story Hazel sees her son's death while in the movie George is the one who sees his son die. In the movie, the effectiveness of the handicaps are expressed during this exchange between Hazel and George, 

“‘Aww, hon, you look upset. What's wrong?’

‘I... uh... don't know. Something sad... on television, I think…’

‘Well, you should forget sad things anyway. I always do.’” (2081) 

This expresses the theme more extremely and clearly because it shows that even though Goerge is said to have above-average intelligence the handicaps cause him to forget the death of his son. This shows how the handicaps take away equality and individualism because they make him average intelligence and average intelligence is very low so that takes away individuality because everyone is perfectly equal and the same. Ultimately while the handicaps in the story can interrupt George’s train of thought the handicaps in the movie can make him forget the death of his son. Therefore, the handicaps in the movie represent and express the theme of equality and individualism more clearly and visually and show how the handicaps that make everyone exactly equal also take away individuality.

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