7. Why do you think the Vonnegut decides to write dance scene in this way?

Dance is all about freedom and personal expression. Dance is the antithesis of what the state and Diana Moon Glampers demand of the population. Harrison Bergeron is able to vividly show the world what is possible when forced conformity is literally ripped away.

Hi there. This is what I think (I first wrote this for an essay assignment, so it might seem a little too organized, sorry for that):

The difference between the dance scene and the rest of the novel shows how wonderful the world can be if people are allowed to express themselves and show their attributes freely.

The way the scene of Harrison’s dance is written makes the scene unique from other parts of the story and makes the reader compare it with the rest of the story. On the one hand, delicate sentences are used throughout the dance scene. At the start of the dance, Harrison and the ballerina “reeled, whirled, swiveled, flounced, capered, gamboled, and spun” (4). Seven words with close meanings are used in parallel, making the dance seem more fancy. The rest of the story, quite the opposite, is written in a plain tone, with ordinary words and simple sentence structures. After reading pages of this plain narration, the reader finds the dance scene much more exciting and appealing. On the other hand, the author creates much exaggeration throughout the dance scene. At the climax of their dance, Harrison and the ballerina “remain suspended in air…kissing each other for a long, long time” (5). This is surreal, but it vividly shows how elegant the dance is, as if by dancing Harrsion and the ballerina have entered a world beyond the dystopian reality, where there is nothing that confines them from showing their talents. The rest of the story, however, is of realism. There is merely any exaggeration. Even though the social setting of the story is imagined, the author describes it realistically to make it seem real. Thus, compared to the rest of the fiction, the scene of Harrison’s dance involves much more artistic effects. These effects make the dance scene more appealing and, more importantly, unique from the rest of the story. Sensing its uniqueness, the reader begins to compare the dance to other parts of the fiction.

By comparing Harrison’s dance with the earlier one where ballerinas perform on TV wearing handicaps, for instance, the reader learns that good creations can only be made when people are allowed to show their beauty, intelligence, talents and other attributes freely to the world they live in. Although being professionals, the ballerinas’ performance is plain and boring, “no better than anybody else would have been” (1). This is because they are forced to wear heavy sash weights, which make their movements clumsy and unwieldy. By contrast, the dance of Harrison and his partner, who have smashed their handicaps, “neutralizes gravity with love and pure will” (5). This means that they dance lightly and weightlessly, without any burden, which is contradictory to the ballerinas’ clumsiness. Moreover, Harrison’s dance is “an explosion of joy and grace” (4), in which the word “explosion” vividly shows the splendidness of their performance. Like a blowing firework, or a blossoming flower, Harrison and his partner’s dance is a miracle. Why are the qualities of the two dance scenes so different? Fundamentally, it is because the ballerinas have their sash weights on, while Harrison and his “empress” do not. Handicaps (including sash weights) are all about confining talented people from showing their strengths and abilities. With such a confine, even something as creative and graceful as a dance becomes uninteresting; while without it, something as awesome as Harrison’s dance can be created.

In general, the elegant tone used in describing the dance scene is a hint for the reader to compare it to the rest of the story. By following this hint to think about the difference between Harrison’s dance and the ballerinas’, the message of the short story is found, which is the importance of letting people express themselves freely.