Literary analysis on harrison bergeron

LITERARY ANALYSIS ON “HARRISON BERGERON”

PRESENTED BY:

AMYLE SUSANA MARTÍNEZ

JOHNATAN ESTIVEN BONILLA

UNIVERSIDAD PEDAGÓGICA NACIONAL

FACULTAD DE HUMANIDADES

DEPARTAMENTO DE LENGUAS

BOGOTA, 2009

CONTENT

1. Kurt Vonnegut’s biography

a. “Harrison Bergeron”

2. What is science fiction?

a. Why HarrisonBergeron is a Science Fiction story?

3. What is satire?

4. “Harrison Bergeron” Plot

a. Title

b. Setting

c. Narrator

d. Characters

e. Summary

5. Historical Context:

a. Communism

b. Cold War

c. Civil Rights Movements in The United States

6. Themes

a. Freedom

b. Civil Rights

c. Knowledge and ignorance

d. Lawand Order

e. Superman

f. Media Influence

g. Totalitarianism

7. Analysis and Critics

a. Biographical

b. Political analysis

8. Bibliography

1. KURT VONNEGUT JR.’S BIOGRAPHY

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was born in 1922 in Indianapolis, Indiana (United States) his mother was Edith Lieber and his father Kurt Vonnegut who was a rich architect. He studied inOrchad School and after that he studied in Shortridge Institute, where he works as a school magazine contributor. After studying at Cornell University from 1940 to 1942, Kurt Vonnegut enlisted the U.S. Army. He was sent by the army to what is now Carnegie Mellon University to study engineering in 1943. The next year, he served in Europe and fought in the Battle of the Bulge.

After thisbattle, he was captured by the Nazis. He was in Dresden, Germany, during the Allied firebombing of the city, and saw the complete devastation caused by it, fact that inspired him for his novel “Slaughterhouse-five” (1969) an important pacifist book in the 20th century. At the same time his mother committed suicide with soporific; at this moment he began an important career as a social andpolitical critic writing satire and black humor.

Following his return from the war, Kurt Vonnegut married his high school girlfriend, Jane Marie Cox. The couple had three children. He worked several jobs before his writing career took off, including newspaper reporter, teacher, and public relations employee for General Electric. The Vonneguts also adopted his sister's three children after herdeath in 1958.

Showing his talent for satire, his first novel, Player Piano, was published in 1952. More novels followed, including The Sirens of Titan (1959), Mother Night (1961), and Cat's Cradle (1963). War remained a recurring element in his work and one of his best-known works, Slaughterhouse-Five, draws some of its dramatic power from his own experiences. Kurt Vonnegut Jr. became knownfor his unusual writing style, long sentences and little punctuation, as well as his humanist point of view. He continued writing short stories and novels, including Breakfast of Champions (1973), Jailbird (1979), and Deadeye Dick (1982). Vonnegut even made himself the subject of Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage (1981).

His last novel was Timequake (1997), which became a bestseller despite receiving mixed reviews. Kurt Vonnegut chose to spend his later years working on nonfiction. His last book was A Man without a Country, a collection of biographical essays. In it, he expressed his views on politics and art as well as shed more light on his own life.

He died in April in 2007 whit 84 years old because an accident. Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is considered one of the mostinfluential American novelists of the twentieth century. He left years of an amazing career and multiple works: short stories collections, essays and novels.

a. “Harrison Bergeron”

Harrison Bergeron is a short story that was written by this American writer and was published in 1961 in a science fiction magazine; in 1968 the story appeared in Vonnegut’s collection “Welcome to the...