BNW vs. HB

Kyle Petras

3/6/16

Gubanich
Western Lit.

Blog #6

BNW vs. HB

Now that Brave New World is finished and we have had the chance to read Harrison Bergeron, I can analyze the similarities. Specifically, social stability is what I will be focusing on in this blog. Both stories take place in societies that are based off of making people equal. With BNW, the New World State divides everyone into classes, which are ranked. The people in the other classes don’t know that the other classes are better or worse than them. With Harrison Bergeron, everyone is no smarter or dumber than anyone else. They all must wear restraints and follow orders. BNW and HB are similar in that both have the same idea behind them. Keep everyone equal so there is social stability.

BNW’s government creates its people through engineering. This allows them to be able to create different types and levels of humans. They can create extremely smart people or really dumb ones. Each class only knows about themselves. They don’t know whether they are smarter or dumber than the others. By doing this, it creates a society of stability in which no one feels that they are better than others.

Harrison Bergeron is a story of a boy who gets thrown in jail for being rebellious against his society. The story takes place in his parent’s home while they watch TV. The society in which they live in has the goal to keep everyone equal. It says in the text that no one is smarter or dumber than anyone else. When an officer finds out about Harrison breaking out of jail and begins to influence him being an emperor, Harrison is shot and killed. If people begin to believe others are better than others, they will rebel and want to be better.

Harrison Bergeron and Brave New World share their beliefs of social stability almost identically. Both have the goal to keep people equal and get rid of people thinking they are better. The only differences are that everyone in Harrison Bergeron has restraints and in Brave New World, people have the ability to take soma. These stories are strangely similar. Their societies have the same goal in mind, Equality.