Read this passage from “harrison bergeron” by kurt vonnegut:
“if you could just take a few out when you came home from work,” said hazel. “i mean-you don’t compete with anybody around here. you just sit around.”
“if tried to get away with it,” said george, “then other people’d get away with it- and pretty soon we’d be right back to the dark ages again, with everybody competing against everybody else. you wouldn’t like that, would you? ”
which statement best explains how irony is used in the passage?
a. george is unable to use his reasoning skills because the government handicapped him.
b. george prefers a society with limits rather than one that allows him to compete.
c. george refers to the year 2081 as the dark ages because people are unable to use their talents.
d. hazel tries to persuade her husband to break a strictly enforced law.

The harlem renaissance dawned in an era of pervasive racism and segregation. although legally "free," many african americans were still bound by ideas that had their roots in the slavery of earlier centuries. identity and freedom are important ideas presented in many of the poems from the harlem renaissance. furthermore, the values of identity and freedom are not unique to particular times and places. as hughes expresses in "dream variations," all humans want to be able to develop their identities in freedom. what role does freedom play in the poems you read in this unit? what is required of a society to enable each individual to be true to his or her identity and be free to live by that identity? write about at least three of the poems, describing how the poet uses imagery to depict freedom and identity, the lack of it, or the desire for it.

What key advice did the old-timer give him?

You cannot fully understand a difficult nonfiction text if you read it in a way.