Bernice Bobs Her Hair

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s story ‘Bernice Bobs Her Hair’ entails the tale of an old way of life that might respond the contemporary society in some way but not to shape culture of modern generation as a whole. There are some scenes that we can identify as unchanged and timeless such as boys mocking the girls that are beautiful in their eye sights, girls who love fashion to feel themselves attractive to boys hoping to marry one of the finest military bachelors as the most interesting parts of their youthfulness, and some improper behavior like betrayal of trusts, envy and revenge to people just to get even.

Other conduct portrayed is irrelevant and not comparable today. The label Lost Generation comes to refer with American and English literary authors who gave most of their lives in publishing works in Europe particularly in France during and after the World War I. Author of this story is included in this label. Though not already applicable to the larger population in this modern times such group’s label, the impact of their literary work genre that has done and influenced the next in line are undoubtedly beneficial especially to the youth.

One of the themes of the Lost Generation is women’s complete liberation from cultural nurture such as wearing a much shorter kind of skirt and likewise shorter haircut. In this story, the social freedom of women has been properly demonstrated when Bernice take a stand of embracing her new bobbed hair cut although she was unknowingly betrayed by hair cousin Marjorie at first.

Aside from gender independence by showing the much radical fashion of women, it is also obviously showed off in the story activities such as drinking, smoking and dancing to the tune of barely earsplitting kind of music. Prior to 1920’s women on their teenage life doesn’t seem to be like this, which means that F. Scott Fitzgerald along with other Lost Generation authors created a public awareness of feminist liberation. With relevance to our modern generation, this scene is closely similar as ladies today of the same age in the story are candid and extrovert.

They openly drinks smokes and dances loud music wildly. The story ‘Bernice Bobs Her Hair’ opens a suggestion of restlessness and intimidation. One of the scenes that offer social impact was when Marjorie gave the statement to her mother Mrs. Harvey that Bernice’s Indian blood holds herself back to become dull, unattractive and boring woman. Such impression although came out not as one of the very important implication in the story, gave a very delicate and sensitive statement of racial and gender issue.

On this note, the uneasiness to clearly reveal the topic of American liberation as well as women independence is expressed in this Lost Generation literary piece. R E F E R E N C E S Fitzgerald, F. S. “Bernice Bobs Her Hair. ” F. Scott Fitzgerald Centenary. 1996. Board of Trustees of the University of South California. 23 Feb. 2009 <http://www. sc. edu/fitzgerald/bernice/bernice. html> “Lost Generation. ” 2009. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. 23 Feb. 2009 <http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Lost_Generation>