Describe the character of Harrison Bergeron in terms of both his physical qualities and personality traits.

There is
something unrealistic, it should be noted, at the heart of 's character: everything about him is
larger than life. He is only fourteen years old, and yet he is already an enemy of the
stateseven feet tall with superhuman strength, genius-level intellect, and the grace and
coordination of a trained ballet dancer. Much like the world he inhabits, he pushes the limits
of plausibility (and that may be entirely the point).

In this story, Vonnegut
crafts a world in which the ideal of equality has been pushed beyond all rational limits, in
which those who exhibit above average or exceptional ability must handicap themselves so that
they would no longer stand out from anybody else. It is a society that would impose mediocrity
through the government's monopoly of force. Harrison (on the other hand), with his almost
superhuman abilities, is the absoluteof everything this society values and represents. In taking
over the television studio and dancing with the ballerina, he is engaged in a significant act of
rebellion against the State (and for that act, he is executed at the end of the
story).

In terms of personality traits, one of the most extraordinary factors
to keep in mind is his age: he's only fourteen years old, and yet he's already engaged in an act
of political resistance, and has a coherent political ideology which he espouses. At the same
time, he displays fearlessness in his willingness to defy this imagined United States of the
year 2081 and no small degree of brashness in how he goes about doing so.