In the following excerpt, Wood and Wood outline the theme of human identity found in many of Vonnegut's works, including "Harrison Bergeron."

The same ideas which are treated in the novels appear as well in [Vonnegut's] science-fiction short stories. Such pieces as "Report on the Barnhouse Effect," "Harrison Bergeron," "Welcome to the Monkey House," "The Euphio Question," "The Manned Missiles," "Epicac," and "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" all concern themselves repeatedly with technological problems only as those problems express and explicate character—the character of the human race. Vonnegut proves repeatedly, in brief and pointed form, that men and women remain fundamentally the same, no matter what technology surrounds them. The perfect example of this might be found in "Unready to Wear," in which the shucking off of the physical bodies of men has not changed their basic identities, but only freed them to become more...