Blog No. 4, Mar 14th

Part I:

The assigned reading for Thursday "Bernice Bobs Her Hair" was very good. I can honestly say that this is one of the best works I have read for this class. Probably the reason I think it's so good is that it definitely relates to life for some girls in a sense. As shown, Bernice wasn't one of the "popular" girls, and Marjorie wasn't quite keen of Bernice's anti-social and quite "awkward" company. So she ends up trying to help Bernice become more popular-like with the boys. It can definitely seem familiar to people as this is something that has probably happened in high school or something. The story mostly is a struggle of identity and asks us: "Who the heck are we"? Bernice goes through this typical journey of identity throughout the story, much like what some students go through in high school, especially those labeled as unpopular. This is why I feel it's such a great short story. It can tie into people's lives very well, especially those in high school. It does teach a valuable lesson of identity that most people can learn without having to go through similar events that Bernice had to face.

Part II:
Fitzgerald sees the use of "identity" as something that can easily become manipulated. It is not set in stone in any way, shape, or form. Especially in a world where judgement on people is passed every day, identity can change in a heartbeat. For example, say there is a girl in school who is very popular, she's a "queen of the world" type of person. Then all of the sudden, this girl has to get braces and her appearance and voice change. Odds are, people will say that she looks like a geek. So her identity to the general public has greatly shifted from queen to geek in seconds flat. In the story "Bernice Bobs Her Hair", however, this change of identity is the complete opposite. Bernice takes a radical change from an anti-social, awkward girl into a perfect princess so to speak. She also seemed to be quite shy around boys at the beginning of the story. But this shy identity is soon destroyed when she finally gains the attention of the boys at the dances. This change from awkwardness to being the perfect girl wasn't the only change her identity takes in the story. Near the end, when Bernice was pretty much pushed into actually bobbing her hair, thus destroying her image, she goes into Marjorie's room in the middle of the night and cuts off both of her pigtails and leaves them on Warren's porch before she leaves. This shows a change in Bernice's identity in that she has changed from her normal timid self. After what Marjorie has done to her newfound popularity, she decided to take action and do a very gutsy thing to her cousin. This shows that she's no longer a shy girl but rather one who wants to take charge of her own life now. And revenge on Marjorie for backing Bernice into a corner would be one way to show her new identity.