Once it’s Gone
It's hard to concentrate on anything for a long period of time. I feel I live life in short bursts, and that sometimes I miss the most important things in life because of my handicap. Beep! There goes the piercing noise that races through my brain searching for any traces of thought, then it's gone I can't remember. Imagine yourself in this person’s world, a world where no one can be better than anyone. Everyone has to be the same, and all of our freedom is taken from our souls leaving an empty hollow feeling inside. This is the fictional short story "Harrison Bergeron," by Kurt Vonnegut. In a world where no one can be different you learn that you never know how much something means to you until it's taken away.
When your freedom is taken away it leaves people feeling hollow and not complete, some people will do anything to change that. The story begins in conflict when everyone is forced to be equal in every way possible, taking away their originality. When the governments has too much control and are taking away the rights of the people the conflict becomes serious. But Harrison Bergeron, one of the main characters of the story, is tired of hiding who he really is. So he takes it upon himself to change the ways of the government, he elected himself emperor and a ballerina as his emperies. The short story ends in death when shortly after he became emperor he was murdered be the handicapper general. And everyone who saw this traumatic even slowly forgets due to their own handicaps.
The thought of everyone having a handicap to make everyone equal makes you wonder what that would be like. Equality, something people dream about so there will be no computation. But after reading this story were the dream of equality is a reality you start to realize that this dream unfolds into a nightmare. You begin to see all that comes along with equality, people can't be themselves and the characters freedom now seems to be a dream slipping from their minds with each beep. It is either equality or freedom, we have to choose, and we have to decide our own fate. We are supposed to be the land of the free and in this story our freedom is gone. Our originality, what makes us all unique and special, vanishes into the clouds following all our other dreams.
Harrison’s dreams faded into the clouds after he was murdered for wanting to show who he really was. He didn’t want to be the same as everyone else, just as many other people do. The only difference is that he took the next step and actually tried to do something about it. And for that he was killed. I can relate Harrison to Martin Luther King Jr. He wanted a changed world were people weren’t discriminated against for the color of their skin color. Martin Luther was killed for his beliefs just as Harrison was. The sad part is that you don’t realize how much something means to you until it’s gone. That’s what happend in this story, you don’t realize how lucky we are to have freedom until we are put into a situation like in this story were we have no freedom.
In the short story “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut you realize that our freedom to be who we are is an important part in life, and that most of us don’t even think of it. But once it’s gone it’s something you can’t stop thinking of. It’s hard to know how much something means to you until it’s taken away and you can’t get it back without a fight.
