![]() For a view of his fiction's politics in general, one need only recall Jailbird's satire on conservatism and its sympathy with striking laborers, or the endorsement of income redistribution in God Bless You, Mr. If "Harrison Bergeron" is a satire against the Left, then it is inconsistent with the rest of Vonnegut's fiction. Finally, the analysis will turn to the internal evidence. Then this contextualization will attend to Vonnegut's audience. To argue that thesis, this article begins outside of the text by situating it in Vonnegut's oeuvre: his fiction, nonfiction, speeches, and interviews. More specifically, this text satirizes America's Cold War misunderstanding of not just communism but also socialism. ![]() Rather, the object of his satire is the popular misunderstanding of what leveling and equality entail. But the object of Vonnegut's satire is not all leveling-"any leveling process" that might arise. For example, Stanley Schatt claims that "in any leveling process, what really is lost, according to Vonnegut, is beauty, grace, and wisdom" (133). The critics have taken this text's absurd future utopia as representative of egalitarianism. ![]() For example, Peter Reed says it "satirizes an obsession with equalizing. According to all commentary on Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron," the theme of this satire is that attempts to achieve equality are absurd. ![]()
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