The first thematic link I have chosen for the short story of Harrison Bergeron is this image below which is described in a photograph of an uncivilized society where people don’t have access to water and most importantly food.
More than one billion people live in poverty around the world: the majority of them are women. These women are too often denied access to education, food, medical care, land and more. I chose to focus on this subject of poverty because it is so generally overlooked by most. Poverty is seen a lot throughout the world, but people do not see the troubles the women are put through. In this photograph I wanted the viewer to see emotion through the eyes, the symbols on her hands represent the gender symbols of men and women, her hands cover her mouth because she is deprived from a life of gender equality such as being equal to man in education, rights, medical care and is cast into a life of silence and obedience.
The connection this image has with the short story of Harrison Bergeron is that people throughout the world are living a life of unequal distribution of food and water and they do not have the right to speak for them self and say what’s right for them.
In countries across the world, generations of people are born poor and never get the opportunity to realize their full potential. Their poverty goes hand in hand with poor educational opportunities and access to menial work alone. However, as great a problem as poverty is, it does not have to remain with us forever. One obvious solution to poverty is to more fairly distribute existing wealth, through measures such as supplying surplus food to the poor, cancelling debt owed by developing countries, and guaranteeing a living wage for the poorest workers. This kind of distribution would help to improve the living conditions of the world’s most disadvantaged people.
My next connection to the short story of Harrison Bergeron is this poem “Equality” written by Maya Angelon.
EQUALITY
You declare you see me dimly
through a glass which will not shine,
though I stand before you boldly,
trim in rank and making time.
You do own to hear me faintly
as a whisper out of range,
while my drums beat out the message
and the rhythms never change.
Equality and I will be free.
Equality and I will be free.
You announce my ways are wanton,
that I fly from man to man,
but if I'm just a shadow to you,
could you ever understand?
We have lived a painful history,
we know the shameful past,
but I keep on marching forward,
and you keep on coming last.
Equality and I will be free.
Equality and I will be free.
Take the blinders from your vision,
take the padding from your ears,
and confess you've heard me crying,
and admit you've seen my tears.
Hear the tempo so compelling,
hear the blood throb through my veins.
Yes, my drums are beating nightly,
and the rhythms never change.
Equality and I will be free.
Equality and I will be free.
I chose to link this poem with the short story because Maya Angelou's poem "Equality" is about the way people see her and treat her, and how she wants to be treated. She speaks of how she tries to let people see how she is no different from them. She speaks her message loud and clear and her rhythm never changes. But, society stays deaf and blind to anything she says or does. Maya wants society to treat her equally as everyone else. They look at her equally now, but there are still people out there today who have prejudice views on certain people. Those people are still fighting and they will speak their message loud and clear until the world, as Ms. Angelou says, "Takes the blinders from its vision, and the padding from its ears."
This poem is like a summary of Harrison Bergeron and what the writer of that story was trying to explain. How no matter how you want people to see you out in the world, there will always be a person to judge you and how you can never live a life of equal views and independence.
My last thematic link connection is this video from YouTube during the Oscars when Dustin Lance Black talked about gay marriage and how they don’t have the right to be together forever as partners in marriage. Also in the video Dustin Lance Black says that even though people may not agree with the thought of having gay people married that one day they will get the right and they will no longer have to hind the fact that there married and proud of who they are. He also encourage gay people to stand up and to remember that they are beautiful, wonderful creatures of a value and that no matter what people tell them that god does love them and no one can say that who they as a person is wrong. What I’m trying to say in my connection is that no one can tell a gay person to be not be gay. We don’t live in a world were everyone is straight and equal, if this was possible, then the world would never move forward.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mv35SN3ctU
the connection this video has with the short story is that even though people said that gay marriage is impossible to achieve, that there are still people out there trying to make it a law and trying to give equal rights to gay people all around the world. People around the world said that gay marriage will never happen, but up to this point people are still trying to achieve that impossible thought to work out and for gay people to have there right. This proves that you cannot force people to be gay like you cannot force people to not be smart, or have wonderful talents that could do well to the world.
This other video is the connection to what happened to Harvey Milk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up55VCNA03s
Reference
Picture - 2008-2009 My broken pieces Site: http://mybrokenpieces.deviantart.com/art/Equality-83526773
Wikipedia. (2009). Harrison Bergeron. Retrieved March 11, 2009. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron
Poem- Equality (2008-09) Written by Maya Angelon. Retrieved, March 11, 2009. From http://www.ctadams.com/mayaangelou6.html
YouTube- Dustin Lance Oscar Acceptance – Gay Marriage (2009) Retrieved March 11, 2009. From http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mv35SN3ctU
You tube- Harvey Milk Speech, By Rob Epstein (2009) Retrieved March 11, 2009. From http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ohd2txsNf0o
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