Harrison Bergeron

In 2081, constitutional amendments have made every American equal in intelligence, beauty and physical ability. The government enforces this with handicaps: earpieces that scramble the thoughts of the clever, masks for the good-looking, and heavy weights for the strong.

George and Hazel Bergeron sit watching television, barely aware of what has happened to their fourteen-year-old son. Harrison is unusually strong, intelligent and handsome, so his handicaps are among the heaviest. He has just escaped from jail.

Harrison bursts into a live broadcast and names himself Emperor. He strips away his own restraints, frees a ballerina from hers, and the pair dance, unburdened for a short time. Then the Handicapper General, Diana Moon Glampers, arrives.

Kurt Vonnegut published this short story in 1961 in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and it was later collected in Welcome to the Monkey House. It is satire, pushing the idea of enforced equality to an absurd extreme, and it is brief and dark in tone. It is widely anthologized and taught, and it received a Prometheus Award Hall of Fame citation.