47 pages • 1 hour read
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.Harrison Bergeron
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1960A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Background
Sociopolitical Context: The Cold War
“Harrison Bergeron” was published during the Cold War and is often interpreted as a satire of communism. The theme of “equality” was received by many audiences as a jab at the Soviet Union. When equality is the only goal, excellence is impossible. However, another interpretation is that “Harrison Bergeron” is a satire of the American misunderstanding of communism. The ridiculousness that arises from “total equality” is less a product of equality being a misguided goal and more a consequence of it being misunderstood. Since its publication, film adaptations have used different readings to inform their creative direction. In the United States, the story has been used both as a right-wing criticism of the left and a left-wing criticism of the right.
Authorial Context: Kurt Vonnegut
Born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana, Vonnegut is often hailed as one of the great American political satirists. In a career spanning more than 50 years, Vonnegut published novels, short stories, plays, and nonfiction works. His writing is heavily based on his experience in World War II as a prisoner of war in Dresden during the Allied bombing. His work is critical of war, authoritarianism, and government. Because of this, his writing is often seen as coming from the left.
Vonnegut sold Harrison Bergeron and the other stories published in Welcome to the Monkey House to fund the writing of his novels. He struggled financially yet had a growing family. His sister Alice died in 1958, three years before the publication of “Harrison Bergeron.” Her husband died shortly afterward in an accident, so Vonnegut and his wife adopted their nephews, raising them alongside their three biological children. Later, in an interview with The Paris Review, Vonnegut revealed,
[Alice] was the person I wrote for—that every successful creative person creates with an audience of one in mind. That’s the secret of artistic unity. Anybody can achieve it, if he or she will make something with only one person in mind. I didn’t realize that she was the person I wrote for until after she died (Vonnegut, Kurt. “Kurt Vonnegut, the Art of Fiction No. 64.” Interviewed by George Plimpton, David Hayman, David Michaelis, and Richard Rhodes. The Paris Review, Spring 1977).
In 1959, Vonnegut published Sirens of Titan. As in “Harrison Bergeron,” the plot of Sirens of Titan revolves around a world where all people are made equal by handicaps. Around the time of its publication, Vonnegut started seeing financial success as an author. He achieved best-seller status in 1969 with the publication of his novel Slaughterhouse-Five.
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