The setting of the story is a dystopian United States set in the future year of 2081, where the Constitution has been amended more than 200 times. These amendments are meant to insure a leveling equality in which nobody can excel over anyone else.

We learn nothing about where this story takes place in the United States and nothing about what homes, towns, or cities look like in this future environment. Most of what is described shows the various handicapping devices that keep people down. Harrison's father, George, for example, is very intelligent, so he wears a device in his ear that emits loud noises every twenty seconds. This distracts him so that he can never think straight. One noise sounds like a milk bottle being hit with a hammer, another like a buzzer, and another like a loud twenty-one gun salute.

Physically attractive people have to wear ugly or ridiculous face masks, and physically able or graceful people are weighed down with bags of birdshot. People can also be required to...

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