Imperfect Beauty

Imperfect Beauty

In 1776, Thomas Jefferson set forth a new vision of nation based on a set of American ideals, which are principles or standards of perfection that people always trying to achieve. Among these perfect ideals, there are five founding ideals: equality, rights, liberty, opportunity and democracy. Jim Ryun, an American former track athlete and politician says, “Today, we stand as a united country and are much closer to the ideals set forth in our Constitution that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” While Ryun thinks that people are getting closer to the American ideals, both Kurt Vonnegut and Ursula K. Le Guin offer satires of American ideals which suggest the inherent flaws they see in American culture. In “Harrison Bergeron,” Kurt Vonnegut implies that total equality is not an ideal that worth striving for, but an erroneous goal which is dangerous in both personal and national aspects, since it ruins people’s minds and causes a horrible result to the entire society. Similarly, in “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” Ursula K. Le Guin suggests that unfairness and evil hide behind individual rights and happiness by revealing a happy Utopian society whose survival depends on the existence of a child who is locked in a small room and mistreated. “Harrison Bergeron” and “The Ones Walk Away from Omelas” both show ideal world where some terrible sacrifices must be made in order to maintain the “wonderful” lifestyle that people pursue, exposing the inherent flaws of American ideals in American culture.

According to Vonnegut in “Harrison Bergeron,” “In 2081, everyone was finally equal,” he says, “There weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else.”...