Constitutional amendments establish total equality, with government agents enforcing the rules on every citizen.

Government agents take Harrison Bergeron, age fourteen, away from his parents.

George and Hazel Bergeron sit watching television while Hazel has unexplained tears on her cheeks.

Hazel tells George she thinks she would make a good Handicapper General.

A television announcer fails to deliver a news bulletin due to a severe speech impediment.

A ballerina takes the microphone and apologizes for her beautiful voice before reading the bulletin.

The bulletin announces that Harrison Bergeron has escaped from jail.

Harrison Bergeron bursts into the television studio still loaded down with all of his handicap gear.

Harrison proclaims himself Emperor and declares himself the greatest ruler who has ever lived.

Harrison tears off his handicap harness and flings away his rubber-ball nose, revealing his true appearance.

A ballet dancer rises from the audience to claim her place as Harrison's empress and he strips off her handicaps.

Harrison and the dancer perform a breathtaking, gravity-defying dance together in the studio.

Diana Moon Glampers enters the studio with a shotgun and shoots Harrison and the dancer dead.

Glampers orders the musicians at gunpoint to put their handicaps back on.

George and Hazel are unable to remember what they saw on television and resume their mundane conversation.

In a future America, constitutional amendments enforce total equality and the Handicapper General's agents remove anyone who threatens that order, including teenager Harrison Bergeron. While his parents George and Hazel sit passively watching television, a bulletin interrupts the broadcast to announce that Harrison has escaped from jail. Harrison storms the TV studio, tears off his restraints, and crowns himself Emperor before selecting a dancer as his empress and performing a breathtaking, gravity-defying dance. Handicapper General Diana Moon Glampers enters the studio and shoots both Harrison and the dancer dead, immediately reasserting state control. The story closes with George and Hazel unable to remember what they witnessed, slipping back into their mindless routine as if nothing happened.

The headline events of Harrison Bergeron's rebellion and its violent end.

Ballet dancers on television perform while wearing handicaps, moving no better than an untrained person would.

George winces when a sharp noise erupts from his mental handicap earpiece while he watches television.

George tells Hazel the earpiece sound was like someone hitting a milk bottle with a ball-peen hammer.

Hazel cheerfully proposes new sounds the Handicapper General could program into George's earpiece.

A twenty-one-gun salute blasts in George's ear and leaves him trembling with tears in his eyes.

Hazel describes the devastating twenty-one-gun salute noise in George's ear as simply "a doozy."

Hazel suggests that George rest his heavy lead-ball handicap bag on the pillows to ease the weight.

Hazel proposes making a small hole in the handicap bag to secretly remove some of the lead balls.

George refuses to tamper with the bag, citing a two-thousand-dollar fine and two years in prison.

The bulletin warns television viewers not to attempt to reason with Harrison Bergeron.

Harrison's picture appears on screen showing a clown nose, blackened teeth, and enormous headphones.

George recognizes his son on television when Harrison's thunderous footsteps shake the picture.

Harrison seizes the studio musicians, waves them like batons, and forces them into their chairs.

The musicians begin to play at their full ability after Harrison commands them, filling the studio with real music.

George slips out of the living room to get a cold beer while Harrison is appearing on television.

The world of enforced equality is felt most vividly in the small, everyday moments: ballet dancers hobbled by handicaps, George wincing through painful earpiece noises, and Hazel cheerfully suggesting ways to make the state's torture more varied. When Hazel nudges George to lighten his handicap bag, his fearful refusal reveals how thoroughly the government has won his compliance. The broadcast then shifts to Harrison's arrival, where his thunderous footsteps shake the TV picture and George quietly recognizes his own son before slipping out of the room for a beer. Inside the studio, Harrison commands the musicians to play their best, and for one brief moment real music fills the air before the state intervenes.

The quieter details of life under enforced equality and Harrison's takeover of the studio.

The narrator establishes that in this society no one is more intelligent, attractive, or physically capable than anyone else.

Hazel remarks that she finds it interesting to hear all the different sounds that go off in George's earpiece.

George briefly begins to think that perhaps not everyone should have to wear handicaps every single moment.

George's earpiece immediately fires a noise that scatters his potentially rebellious thought before it forms.

George argues that if he broke the law, everyone else would too, and society would collapse into dark-age competition.

The bulletin reveals Harrison was imprisoned on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government.

The bulletin describes Harrison as a genius and an athlete who is dangerously under-handicapped.

Harrison sings to the musicians to demonstrate exactly how he wants the music to be performed.

Harrison promises the musicians that they will become barons, dukes, and earls if they play their very best.

Harrison and the dancer leap thirty feet into the air together and share a kiss while suspended above the floor.

Glampers enters the studio carrying a double-barreled shotgun and raises it toward the stage.

The sound of Glampers' shotgun blast is broadcast through George's earpiece as he stands in the kitchen.

George pauses in another room as a handicap signal jolts him and prevents him from processing what he heard.

George returns to find Hazel crying but completely unable to explain what she saw on television.

George tells Hazel to forget sad things, she says she always does, and he winces at a riveting gun in his head.

The story's deepest revelations unfold through small cracks in ordinary life: George almost thinks a forbidden thought before his earpiece silences him, and his reasoned defense of the government exposes how completely state propaganda has replaced genuine belief. The bulletin's disclosure that Harrison was imprisoned for plotting to overthrow the government reframes him from a runaway teen to a political dissident. Harrison's brief reign in the studio is defined by performance and promise — he sings to the musicians, pledges them aristocratic titles, and leaps with the dancer in a moment of pure, defiant beauty. The state's violent response travels instantly through George's earpiece, ensuring he cannot mourn or even comprehend his son's death. The story ends not with confrontation but with quiet erasure, as Hazel admits she always forgets sad things and George flinches at yet another noise in his head.

The key revelations and decisions that expose how the state controls its citizens.