One of the major ironies within “Harrison Bergeron” is that in their society’s attempt to not make people feel bad they still cannot mask, pun intended, that some people are superior to others.
In the world of Harrison Bergeron, beauty is seen as an unfair physical attribute that is countered by making people wear masks.
“…their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in.”
The use of masks, however, does not keep people from knowing that the person is beautiful. For example, the text refers to one of the ballerinas:
“She must have been extraordinarily beautiful, because the mask she wore was hideous.”
If the true purpose of the mask was to make people equal and not feel bad, then the mask would have to prevent people from knowing how beautiful the person was. As seen in the quote, the uglier the mask the more beautiful the person.
An additional irony is that physical handicaps become obsolete and have to be replaced. In seeking to eliminate physical superiority in an individual the handicap only serves to make the individual stronger. Again the irony is exposed through the description of the ballerina when the text reads,
“And it was easy to see that she was the strongest and most graceful of all the dancers, for her handicap bags were as big as those worn by two-hundred pound men.”
Since we are able to make a comparison of handicaps worn by individuals, it is possible to know their true abilities, negating the purpose of the handicap.
Together the masks and the weights are intended to hide and hinder the beauty and skills of the ballerina, yet they only serve to let the audience know how beautiful and strong she really is.
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