Please help me remember what this story is called...

[oliverashford]

Been racking our brains trying to remember the title of a great short story that I want to share with my friends.

As far as I can remember, the story goes like this:

A society where everyone is forced to be equal using various suppressing methods. These include, devices which emit random confusing sounds to debilertate overly inteligent people. These are regulary adjusted depending on individuals IQ and take the form of large head-phones which go round the back of the head. Also, physically superior people are forced to bear specific weights to make their performance conform to the norm.

The main protagonist is being watched on TV by his parents. His name is, I think, Harold (Bergmeister??). Part of the way through the performace he tears of his restricting weigths and those of his female partner and they dance like the awesome dancers that they really are. Shortly after this someone a woman called the something-master-general bursts in with troops and shoots them down. His parents watching, soon forget as their mind-controlling devices suppress their memory of their son.

(Might also be confusing this with a similar film where the protagonist watches a dancer who's weight falls off. He later takes over a television station???)

Please help us as this is an amazing story and I really want to share it with others.

Thanks in advance,

Oli and Dave

[jrderego]

Been racking our brains trying to remember the title of a great short story that I want to share with my friends.

As far as I can remember, the story goes like this:

A society where everyone is forced to be equal using various suppressing methods. These include, devices which emit random confusing sounds to debilertate overly inteligent people. These are regulary adjusted depending on individuals IQ and take the form of large head-phones which go round the back of the head. Also, physically superior people are forced to bear specific weights to make their performance conform to the norm.

The main protagonist is being watched on TV by his parents. His name is, I think, Harold (Bergmeister??). Part of the way through the performace he tears of his restricting weigths and those of his female partner and they dance like the awesome dancers that they really are. Shortly after this someone a woman called the something-master-general bursts in with troops and shoots them down. His parents watching, soon forget as their mind-controlling devices suppress their memory of their son.

(Might also be confusing this with a similar film where the protagonist watches a dancer who's weight falls off. He later takes over a television station???)

Please help us as this is an amazing story and I really want to share it with others.

Thanks in advance,

Oli and Dave

Harrison Bergeron

[Planish]

Harrison Bergeron

Ah. i thought that plot sounded familiar.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron
I must have read it in the Welcome to the Monkey House collection.

[Leon Kensington]

Yep, Harrison Bergeron.

One of my favorite Vonnegut stories, ought to have been part of Masters of Scifi.

[oliverashford]

Brilliant. Thanks everyone. Looking forward to digging out a copy and showing a few people

[bolddeceiver]

On the topic, has anyone seen the play or the film?  They both differ greatly from the story, but in exploring a different take on the same premise, I would argue that they are miles above your usual super-literal adaptation.

[jrderego]

On the topic, has anyone seen the play or the film?  They both differ greatly from the story, but in exploring a different take on the same premise, I would argue that they are miles above your usual super-literal adaptation.

I have seen the film and enjoyed it immensely.

[DDog]

I had totally forgotten about that story. Although I wonder where I've read it, since I remember it from elementary school and I know I wasn't consciously reading Vonnegut yet back then. Possibly some class-assigned anthology (read Bradbury's "The Veldt" that way), or maybe we or another grade performed a play of it at a school assembly...