harrison bergeron by kurt vonnegut jr audio

George voluntarily takes on the burden of his handicaps because he genuinely believes that whatever the government is doing is for the best. When Hazel suggests that George take out some of the weight from his bag, he is against this as he believes in the policies of the government and thinks that if he starts doing this, society will follow and it’d “go back to the difficult times”. Hazel has random thoughts sometimes, that is borderline rebellious, but since she has an “average” wit, her thoughts don’t have weight behind them. In fact, they’re just like everyone else. The ballerinas, due to their handicaps, aren’t very good. These ballerinas are also “handicapped”, some of them laden with weights, some with masks, in order to disguise them so that the viewers don’t feel discouraged about their own looks. Hazel and George are watching ballerinas on the television. This is to stop him from disrupting society on a larger level. They have a son, Harrison, 14 years of age, who is apparently a genius and of superior physique, who is taken away by the government. Where Hazel possesses “average” intelligence and “average” body, George has to lug around “47 pounds of birdshot” and a government-issued transmitter that’d interrupt his thoughts every few seconds or so, causing him to not be able to think about anything other than what is in front of him. One such “normal” couple is George and Hazel Bergeron.

Harrison bergeron by kurt vonnegut jr audio