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Harrison Bergeron Character Analysis

Decent Essays

What shapes a person?What makes a person?These questions have been asked for a long time. But, in the following texts, we see evidence of what makes a person. Of Mice and Men is an unhappy story taking place in an unhappy time, yet the characters have a lot of depth to them, despite the short length of the actual book. The characters are shaped by their history and their experiences. “Harrison Bergeron” is a short story about the future. In this future through people's unending quest for perfect equality. People have handicapped others to make everyone equal in beauty, strength, intelligence, and career. The reality is cruel. The son of one average person and an above average person is believed to be too strong to smart and good looking? But …show more content…

Through the experience of escaping Weed, we see how far George is willing to go for Lennie but also how long they’ve been together. We see this in the fact that Lennie forces George to travel around California because of all his mistakes, which shapes him through the continuous moving. "Well, he saw this girl in a red dress. Dumb bastard like he is, he wants to touch everything he likes.Want to feel it. So he reaches out to feel this red dress an' the girl lets out a squawk, and that gets Lennie all mixed up, and he holds on 'cause that's the only thing he can think to do.”(Of Mice and Men).The evidence above proves how George has done a lot for Lennie, and the experience of having to kill Lennie has most definitely shaped George at the end of the story.“And George raised the gun and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie's head. The hand shook , but his face set and his hand steadied. He pulled the trigger. The crash of the shot rolled up the hills and rolled down again. Lennie jarred,” (Of Mice and Men). Through Lennie dying it was a life-altering event because George no longer had anyone to take care of. It shows an experience like this shapes George as a …show more content…

The poem says that the apology means nothing because at the end they basically destroy the entire purpose of the document. The poem is called whereas because every sentence of the document starts with whereas and it shows how history and experiences make a person. One of the largest errors in history that the government apologizes for is the mass genocide and attempt of removing the Native American culture from the United States. But, “Whereas like a bird darting from an oncoming semi my mind races to the Apology’s assertion“While the establishment of permanent European settlements in North America did stir conflict with nearby Indian tribes, peaceful and mutually beneficial interactions also took place”(Whereas pg 1). We see that the author doesn't feel that this apology suffices what it could and should be.“Whereas I could’ve but didn’t broach the subject of“genocide”the absence of this term from the Apology and its rephrasing as “conflict….”(Whereas pg 1). The evidence proves my thesis because it shows how history can shape a person even though they might not necessarily have been around to experience it. Such as in the quote“Whereas I could’ve but didn’t broach the subject of ‘genocide’ the absence of this term from the Apology and its rephrasing as ‘conflict’ for example.” Simply because the government couldn’t say that their predecessors made a mistake.

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