Intro (Revised)

         “Harrison Bergeron”, written by Kurt Vonnegut, is a short story that tells of the ironic shortcomings of a seemingly perfect man who dies in the hands of his suppressive government. Harrison Bergeron, born in a nation that makes equality the highest priorety, defies his suppresive government by tearing off his handicaps on live television; but the government fights back by making his perfect body equal to everyone else’s by shooting him. Vonnegut toys with our expectations of the story’s end by adding irony in Harrison Bergeron’s actions and changes the outcomes so the story still makes sense but nevertheless puzzles and intrigues his audience. Vonnegut uses Harrison Bergeron to show his audience how irony can change one’s perception of the future, and how irony can be used to deceive one’s emotions.

Outline:

      I.                        “Harrison Bergeron” written by vonnegut has shortcomings but dies to his suppressive government

a.     Individual who wants to show his true self

b.     Doesn’t want to be suppressed and ends up dead from the government

    II.                         Bergeron born in a country that has equality as its number one priority

a.     Wants to be free

b.     Pays the cost of himself

  III.                        Vonnegut uses irony to play with our expectations

a.     Uses irony to make a story in which the outcome is unknown

b.     Makes the story stick out in our minds

  IV.                        Vonnegut uses Bergeron to show the audience irony can be used to deceive and amplify the ideas in the story

a.     Irony projects ideas to the readers

b.     Bergeron has an end which reveals the authors main tool of irony

Harrison Bergeron Irony Intro

            Throughout Kurt Vonnegut’s short story, “Harrison Bergeron”, Vonnegut cleverly uses irony to portray Harrison’s life as a compilation of ironic moments to draw the reader to believe in false expectations. The situational irony within the story creates a scene with an ending that differs from most’s expectation and sticks in the reader’s mind as a unique and surprising story. Vonnegut uses the powerful tool of irony to create a plot in which a nation is being suppressed so that everyone is mentally and physically similar, but one man, Harrison Bergeron, rips off is disabilities to show that he is different and to express his true self, which gets him killed. Vonnegut desires to write in a such a way that he may use Harrison Bergeron to toy with feelings and beliefs to boldly and fully get his point across. “Harrison Bergeron” contains the irony necessary to portray the plot and setting in such a way that decieves people’s minds so no one expects the end.

The Man Born In the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time

In E.A. Robinson’s poem, “Miniver Cheevy,” Minever, the main character, believes himself an anachronism, something/someone out of its historical time. Minever regrets being born during and longs to live in the time of the Renaissance and, “missed the medieval grace/Of iron clothing” (E.A. Robinson 19-20). Minever is a man who believes he was born too late and dreams and dreams of, “Romance, now on the town,/And Art, a vagrant” (E.A. Robinson 15-16). Though Miniver “wept that he was ever born,” he does nothing to try and change his present and enjoy life as much as possible. Like Eveline, Miniver is stuck in the past and can’t enjoy the present; he only relives (in his mind) the past. Eveline, however, was stuck in her past and her previous joy, whereas, Minever is stuck in the past and previous joys of others. So Minever does not relive his own accomplishments, he would rather dream of how it might have felt when the Medicis saw Brunelleschi’s dome fully built dome and realized their success. Miniver wishes he was born with the Medicis and the Renaissance instead of his “boring” modern life.

An Ironic Situation

In Marge Piercy’s poem, “Barbie Doll,” and in Nadine Gordimer, “Once Upon a Time,” irony is used to mess with the reader’s expectations and emotions. In “Barbie Doll,” Piercy portrays to the reader how beautiful and powerful “Barbie” is. But then Piercy writes that “Barbie” has an ugly nose and fat legs. Irrationally, she decided to cut off her nose and legs which killed her. While she was lying in her coffin, everyone who called her ugly when she was alive called her beautiful with her fake nose and fake legs. This story is ironic because she tried so hard to fit in with others and tried so hard to be beautiful, but she was only called beautiful out of pity and artificial limbs.

In Gordimer’s story, “Once Upon a Time,” a town was terrified of robberers and thieves breaking into their house, so they decieded to add barbed wire and alarms to prevent break-ins. Unfortunately, this much protection kept intruders out but kept the innocents in. This story is ironic because as the townspeople tried to keep intruders out, they prevented people from leaving which resulted in the death of a young child who wanted to try and climb the fence but got caught in barbed wire and died.

In Piercy’s “Barbie Doll” and in Gordimer’s “Once Upon a Time,” situational irony is used to give the characters a problem, and their solution causes the people they care about to die. Piercy and Gordimer use irony instead of direct narration give the reader and emotional kick and dramatic change in expectations to make the story stand out in the readers’ mind.

My First Post

Welcome to Kayhonesty, where my honest opinions are written. This summer, I read an amazing short story titled “Eveline” by James Joyce. “Eveline” is about weak-willed, helpless nineteen-year-old woman, who puts her decisions and fate in the hands of others. Eveline is a complicated woman from the outside but she gets much simpler when you look more closely. At first, I believed she was just weak-willed and indisisve, but a closer look shows that she, like her father, hangs on to the past and its memories and enjoys the past more than she will ever enjoy the present or future. My favorite section of the story is the second paragraph when she is recollecting these memories of her past to dull the present. “Few people passed. The man out of the last house passed on his way home; she heard his footsteps clacking along the concrete pavement and afterwards crunching on the cinder path before the new red houses. One time there used to be a field there in which they used to play every evening with other people's children. Then a man from Belfast bought the field and built houses in it -- not like their little brown houses but bright brick houses with shining roofs. The children of the avenue used to play together in that field -- the Devines, the Waters, the Dunns, little Keogh the cripple, she and her brothers and sisters. Ernest, however, never played: he was too grown up. Her father used often to hunt them in out of the field with his blackthorn stick; but usually little Keogh used to keep nix and call out when he saw her father coming. Still they seemed to have been rather happy then. Her father was not so bad then; and besides, her mother was alive. That was a long time ago; she and her brothers and sisters were all grown up her mother was dead. Tizzie Dunn was dead, too, and the Waters had gone back to England. Everything changes. Now she was going to go away like the others, to leave her home.” (Joyce, James “Eveline”) This passage made me reread and reread it to fully understand all the hidden meanings behind each word. I love how she was remembering these moments of happiness and joy, trying to convince herself that this town (were she grew up) isn’t so bad and her father wasn’t so bad; yet she wants another life with Frank, her way out of this present town. This struggle shows her complexity and innocence and just draws me into to know more about Eveline and her life.