Do Now:How do students in your school feel about the pressure(s) to be “the same”—to act, think or dress the same way others do? Do you believe this pressure derives from outside forces or from personal desires? Do you think being the same makes most people happy, or would they really prefer to act on their own? Explain.
Answer: I think everyone once had the desire to be the same because it is human nature to fit in and feel accepted. I think this can be derived from both outside forces like external peer pressure and personal desires. I think whether being the same makes people happy depends on the person because everyone is different and their personalities are also different. Personally, I would rather act on my own.
Introduction of “Harrison Bergeron”:
- “Harrison Bergeron” was first published in the October, 1961, issue of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
- It was Vonnegut's third publication in a science fiction magazine, following the drying up of the once-lucrative weekly family magazine market where he had published more than twenty stories between 1950 and 1961.
- The story did not receive any critical attention, until 1968 when it appeared in Vonnegut's collection.
Biography of Kurt Vonnegut Jr.:
- He was born on November 11, 1922 and died on April 11, 2002.
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., was born in 1922, the youngest of three children of Edith and Kurt Vonnegut, in Indianapolis, Indiana.
- His siblings had attended private schools, but financial difficulties during the Great Depression meant that Vonnegut had to attend public schools.
- He has said that he gleaned (gathered) the basis of his political and social beliefs from his junior civics class.
- He mostly made social satires that raised questions on topics like morality, freedom, and what we should value.
- During World War 2, he was held captive in a slaughterhouse in Germany, which inspired his most famous work, Slaughterhouse-Five.
Literary Focus:
Satire: any kind of writing, speaking, or art that ridicules (mocks, makes fun of) some weakness in individuals or in society. It mocks or makes fun of human folly (foolishness).
Dystopia: the often futuristic vision of a society in which conditions of life are miserable, and characterized by poverty, oppression, war, violence and/or terror, resulting in widespread unhappiness, suffering, and other kinds of pain
Characterization: Indirect vs Direct:is the process of revealing the personality of a character in a story. A writer can reveal a character by:
- Letting us hear the character speak
- Describing how they look and dress
- Letting us listen to their inner thoughts
- Revealing what other characters in the story think or say about the character
- Show us what the character does—how they act.
- Telling us directly what the character’s personality is like: cruel, kind, sneaky
- from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
For example: “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.”
- “Sonnet 130” by William Shakespeare
There is a handy way on how to remember the 5 types of indirect characterization:
Group/Team work: Direct or Indirect characterization.
Directions: With your teams, identify the characterization in these two videos.
The Harry Potter video uses indirect characterization because it shows a variety of characters. The way they speak and their actions, and what they have shown us shows us what these characters are going to be like. Their actions can help us deduce and describe the characters.
Begin Reading: “Harrison Bergeron”
What’s funny in a critical way is that every person is considered truly equal. However, there is a United States Handicapper General who has more power and is therefore not equal to the rest. There is also a government that holds more power than the rest of society, which also isn’t equal.
Question 2: What are the implications of the opening sentence?
The implications of the opening paragraph shows that this is sci-fi and the year is 2081. There are a lot more amendments in the Constitution, which shows that the laws have been rapidly changing. There is also a new position in the government called the United States Handicapper General. This indicates that this person or government body makes everyone equal by putting on handicaps on above-average people.
Reflection:
The reading that we did today helped me reflect on the topic of equality that I first learned about from Fahrenheit 451 and previous lessons. The reading was built on the fact that nothing can be truly equal. We also learned in the Do Now that everyone, at least once in their lives, has always wanted to fit in and feel accepted because it is human nature. The Do Now question made me reflect on my past and think about what happened. We also learned about satire, dystopia, and characterization. I will definitely use characterization to help me understand texts better. We also learned about these three things because they are vital to understand texts like “Harriet Bergeron” and similar readings. We also learned direct and indirect characterization to help us differentiate between the two. A good way on how to memorize indirect characterization is the STEAL method which is shown above. Learning about dystopia and characterization can also help us to better understand future texts that we will read in class like Lord of the Flies. This lesson has been a great starter into dystopian literature.
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