Explain how "Harrison Bergeron" is a satire.

According to dictionary.com, satire is defined as “the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices.”  “Harrison Bergeron” is a short story by Kurt Vonnegut that exposes what could happen if the individual gives up his personal freedoms to a government.  The Bergerons are just one family in the story who have been convinced to suppress their individuality and strengths to a government that claims everyone should be...

According to dictionary.com, satire is defined as “the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices.”  “Harrison Bergeron” is a short story by Kurt Vonnegut that exposes what could happen if the individual gives up his personal freedoms to a government.  The Bergerons are just one family in the story who have been convinced to suppress their individuality and strengths to a government that claims everyone should be equal and no better than anyone else.  The government “handicaps” people’s strengths to bring everyone down to the same level.  For Harrison who is a strong, young teenager, the government weighs him down with bags of sand to weaken him.  George, Harrison’s father, gets blasted in the ears with a loud noise when he begins to think too much. 

Vonnegut is using satire to point out how we as humans are often stupid enough and willingly enough give up our individuality to be like everyone else.  We give in to peer pressure or societal rules to not stick out and to blend in.  In the case of the short story, the citizens give up these rights to an oppressive government that claims everyone should be the same.  Written in 1961 during the Cold War, the story could also be a comment on communism and its political theories of a collective society where everyone is equal and works for each other. 

All in all, “Harrison Bergeron” is a story about a dystopian society that feels everyone should be equal in talents and abilities, and it is up to the individual, like Harrison, to rebel and protest the oppression enforced by the government.  Vonnegut is pointing out the stupidity of conformity and man’s need to fit in at all costs.