Young Writers Society

Smaur showed me a short story and I finally read it today. It's really good; take a look at it.

http://www.stanford.edu/~guptaak/articles/harrison.html

Really good, huh?

Questions to think about:

In the story, everyone was equal. They were of the same intelligence, beauty, and everything, either by nature or artificially. But were they all truly equal? Can there ever be true equality in our own society?

Notice the concern that the woman had for her husband. She didn't mind him being above her, if only for a little while. Why does she say this?

Why did the story feature ballerinas? Could the same impact have been made if it had taken place in a scientific laboratory or school?

Intelligence was frowned against and, instead of raising people to become smarter, they decided, for an equal society they had to dumb down everyone. Why? Do we do that for our own society?

Some of the ballerinas had masks on and the main character commented that those ballerinas must have been completely beautiful. In our own society, we frequently tell our own beautiful women to "cover up" so they do not distract or make girls feel insecure. At what point does modesty become a mask?

Why did Harrison and the ballerina kiss the ceiling?

The man hears many different sounds during the course of the story. How do these sounds play in the story?

We actually had this mentioned in the "most disturbing books you've ever read" thread - I've read it before, and it's definitely an excellent and thought-provoking piece of literature.

There are certain things that, it is fair to say, the majority of people in the western world would like to have. These generally include health, beauty, money, acceptance and recognition. While for some people they are the be-all and end-all, and for others they are not as important, they are the kind of things that we would like to have if possible.
The price you pay for aiming to get one or all of these things is that you have to recognize that other people may well have more of one or all of these things than you. In effect, the price you pay for playing the game is understanding that you can lose: you are likely to lose.

Equality of opportunity is something to aim at and celebrate: uniformity, conformity and carbon-copy human beings, however, are not. Opportunity within diversity offers the best quality of life for everyone.