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Kurt Vonnegut’s Inspiration. Kurt Vonnegut, Author of the short story collaboration Welcome to the Monkey House, expressed two messages inspired by his siblings. As stated in his preface “No pain” were the last words of his dying sister and in a letter from his brother after he had his first child it said “Here I am, cleaning shit off of practically everything.” He said the two main themes of his novels were just those two statements. These themes were expressed in the short stories of Welcome to the Monkey House. “No pain” easily inspired “Harrison Bergeron” and “Long Walk to Forever.” Then, “Here I am Cleaning shit off practically everything” contributed to the creation of “Go Back to Your Precious Wife and Son.” In “Harrison Bergeron”, people were given handicaps to enforce the equality of all people. No one could feel less then another because they were not given the opportunity to. If intelligent people started to have an intelligent thought, an incredibly loud sound would crash through the persons head eliminating any thoughts they once had. Creating a world where no one could be smarter then anyone else, so no one could feel stupid. Everyone was equal to the least intelligent people