Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. is the first short story we read to start off this unit. Being the first short story, I read it with an open mind to give me a refreshing idea of the layout of these short stories. With this open outlook, I tried to analyze some key aspects of short stories and their general plot graph. Fortunately, Harrison Bergeron has a very clear plot graph, as I could easily spot rising and falling action as well as the general climax. Aside from the plot, Harrison Bergeron's characters are also very clear, but they're not as round or deep as I would see in most stories, but I suppose that would be natural for a story only a few pages long.
Despite these somewhat-flat characters, they still held my attention and interest through a strange uniqueness. Specifically, George and Hazel Bergeron intrigued me the most. George and Hazel are simply ordinary citizens of the United States, meaning that they are handicapped to the lowest possible standard. Due to their handicaps, these "main" characters are able to express some emotion, but only in short bursts, as they would soon forget about their feeling and thoughts. In short, their uniqueness as characters come from how they aren't able to express much emotion or thought, yet rather than repelling any interest with their shallowness, they instead captured mine. In this way, Kurt Vonnegut is able to create characters of interest and intrigue in a short story through his use of a lack of depth, rather than an excess.
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