What events are included in the rising action of "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut?

The rising action of a story or novel is made up of all of the events that build up towards the climax, which is the highest point of excitement. Rising action is also how the conflict of the story builds. Once the author has set the scene and established the characters, the rising action begins, and events start to happen that move the story and the conflict forward and build up tension. Often, as in Harrison Bergeron, the rising action begins when an event disrupts or changes the main character's daily life.

In Harrison Bergeron, the author sets the scene by describing George and Hazel Bergeron and an average day of their lives in 2081. The rising action begins when the couple's television program is interrupted by a "news bulletin" stating, "Harrison Bergeron, age fourteen...has just escaped from jail, where he was held on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government. He is a genius and an athlete, is under-handicapped, and should be regarded as extremely dangerous." This immediately shakes them from their normal blissful apathy, because Harrison is their son.

The next important event in the rising action is when Harrison breaks into the television station, and suddenly George sees on the screen, "Clanking, clownish, and huge, Harrison stood - in the center of the studio. The knob of the uprooted studio door was still in his hand. Ballerinas, technicians, musicians, and announcers cowered on their knees before him, expecting to die." Harrison then announces "Even as I stand here" he bellowed, "crippled, hobbled, sickened - I am a greater ruler than any man who ever lived!". The rising action continues to build excitement and tension as Harrison rips off his government issued handicaps, chooses an "empress", and dances beautifully and freely for all the world to see. By all appearances, it seems that Harrison has won.

However, the rising action ends bluntly at the climax, which is the moment when "Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, came into the studio with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun. She fired twice, and the Emperor and the Empress were dead before they hit the floor."

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...

nouns - what do you call the person who passes the trophies to the prize giver/presenter?

The person who gives out the trophies to the winners are called award presenters. So what do u call the person who passes the trophies to the presenter? Thanks!

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.

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