Week Four Blog

Harrison Bergeron – by Kurt Vonnegut

I have often wondered and thought what a better place the world would be if we were all more equal. If there weren’t people who were richer or if everyone looked the same, or if there weren’t some that were smarter or funnier or more talented. Well, this story touched on that exact thought. It made realize just the opposite – not how much better the world would be if that were true, but how horrible it would be. The story had a Handicapper General – one who saw to it that if anyone was more intelligent, that they would have certain devices put into their ears to jumble their thoughts so as to interrupt their intelligence and people that were beautiful had to wear hideous masks to cover their beauty. The Handicapper General was the one to enforce the implementation of these devices as well and if they weren’t followed – the people would be fined, imprisoned and sometimes, death would occur. There was a rebel – Harrison who didn’t comply - he breaks out of jail – decides that he will be the Emperor, finds someone to be his wife and even if for a brief amount of time – the musicians play without any type of hindrance and things seem momentarily freeing until the HG finds him and shoots him and his would be wife – after that – things resume as they were. With all of it’s heaviness, conformity and to me what seemed like a sad and horrible existence.

There is a part in the story where George and Hazel talk about going back to things the way they were before this and Hazel states “I’d hate it”, George goes on to say – “There you are, the minute people start cheating on laws, what do you think happens to society.” I found that interesting because sometimes, the laws aren’t good ones. Sometimes, society isn’t a better place because of some particular laws. So, a person doesn’t necessarily have to “cheat” the laws but you could definitely challenge them which is what Harrison did and he ended up dying for that choice, however, if you get a group to challenge them with you – there is strength in numbers. Plus, Harrison didn’t really go about the best way either. So..there is another lesson there – when you challenge things, do it through the right channels.

Over all – it was an interesting story, with an interesting concept. I hated the ending.

The Lottery – by Shirley Jackson

This story basically was about a death lottery that happened once a year in this village. Slips of papers were selected and the unlucky person who ended up with the paper with the black bulls-eye at the end was basically stoned to death. The story basically said that the only reason for this ridiculous lottery was because it was “tradition.”

I found this to be a dark story – at first, I wasn’t really sure what was going on or what was going to happen and I was struck by the nonchalant way that everyone

seemed to be acting when they arrived at the town square. I gotta think that if that was me or potentially any of my family members that could end up with that piece of paper, I wouldn’t be all that interested in making small talk with my neighbor.

What this story did make me think about however, was, how often do we do things because it’s tradition or “that’s just the way that we have always done things.” I know that I do quite often. While this story is quite extreme and most things that are done out of tradition don’t have quite this horrible of an outcome – it made me realize that I need to think about why I do things and if they are done “just because that’s the way they always have been done”, does that make it right? Also, there are some things that are don e out of tradition sake that do have terrible outcomes – and maybe as a society – we need to look at those things more closely from time to time and determine if it something that really should be done anymore – and if it’s ethical and right.

Dead Man’s Path – by Chinua Achebe

This story was about a young man that was going to take over a school that he thought was completely backward and in need of new and fresh ideas. He and his wife went in there with determination that they were going to make things great. However, things didn’t go quite as the young man had planned and he started to become irritated that people were walking across the school’s courtyard – so he put up blocks to make it so that the people couldn’t cross. What resulted because of the blocks however was that it made the ancestors of the insulted and his work – all his beautiful work was torn up, a school building was pulled down and when the Supervisor came to inspect things, a nasty report was written about how the headmasters zeal was misguided. You see, in this story, it also made me realize that while maybe not all traditions are still good or necessarily need to be followed anymore – there are some that out of respect to those that have gone before you, or maybe to those that follow ones that I don’t necessarily follow – it is important to respect those traditions. To be mindful of what we do as not to be hurtful to others for what they believe and practice that maybe I don’t. I would in turn, want that from them after all as well.