"In the pursuit of virtue, don't be afraid to overtake your teacher."
"Young people should not be taken lightly. How do you know that they will not one day be better than you are now?"

--Confucius

"True poets are only the interpreters of the Gods."

-- Socrates

You laugh because I'm different, I laugh because you're the same.


Thursday, January 12, 2012

Harrison Bergeron Inference Piece

Author's Note:
This is my inference response to the short story Harrison Bergeron.


Welcome to a cut rope world of torment, unease, and conformity; change is unpermitted and the rules are simple: survive and you win, if you do not, you lose.  What kind of world would this be?  It is not a futuristic, dystopia; it is the world we live in.  If we do not change to fit what is "normal", we are ashamed.  I found that this was a reoccurring inference as I read, Harrison Bergeron.   

In the beginning of the story, the narrator described how "everybody was finally equal", but I believe that he thought everybody was not born equal, but shaped to be.  Then, as we work up our courage to be our own person, like when Harrison proudly stated "I am the Emperor.", we get shot down and our hope is "dead before [we] hit the floor".   Lastly, since the characters see the world from the outside looking in, I thought that if they got a different perspective, they would not "forget the sad things."  That phrase made me think of when someone in your life dies, some people tell you to forget about it, but what's the point of living any life that is going to be forgotten?  Overall, this piece kept making me think on bad worlds, that world, and our world.

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