“Bernice Bobs Her Hair” by F. Scott Fitzgerald (thoughts)

In addition to being a challenge read, I’m posting this review on Monday to participate in John’s Short Story Monday feature. I encourage everyone to go read a short story (if you need some links, check out my current list, C.B. James’ posts from his Short Story September challenge last year, Gautami’s list, or a list of New Yorker short stories from 2008, helpfully linked to by Myrthe) write something about it, and leave a link over at the official post. :)

I learned when reading Joshua Zeitz’s Flapper that it’s sometimes difficult to tell if Fitzgerald invented the flapper, or the flapper invented Fitzgerald. In either case, Fitzgerald made the bulk of his money through his short stories featuring flappers, many of which were published by The Saturday Evening Post. “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” is one such story (and the link I’ve provided includes scanned images of its original publication). It was later included in his collection Flappers and Philosophers and inspired the cover illustration.

We enter his world of glittering young things through a young buck, striding about at a party and commenting to himself on the people he sees. While this sets a generally frivolous mood, there are some luminous Fitzgerald touches, such as I would expect from the author of The Great Gatsby. My favourite is the image at the end of this passage:

There, for example, were Jim Strain and Ethel Demorest, who had been privately engaged for three years. Every one knew that as soon as Jim managed to hold a job for more than two months she would marry him. Yet how bored they both looked, and how wearily Ethel regarded Jim sometimes, as if she wondered why she had trained the vines of her affection on such a wind-shaken poplar.

The story soon shifts to the minds of its key players: Marjorie, a successful young flapper, and her ‘dull’ (if traditionally good) cousin Bernice. Although at home Bernice enjoys quite a bit of popularity, among her cousin’s set she doesn’t know how to act at all, and she’s horribly conscience of not being ‘in.’ Finally, after a particularly trying conversation, she asks Marjorie to tell her what to do. Here’s a taste of the advice that follows:

“All right–I’ll just give you a few examples now. First, you have no ease of manner. Why? Because you’re never sure about your personal appearance. When a girl feels that she’s perfectly groomed and dressed she can forget that part of her. That’s charm. The more parts of yourself you can afford to forget the more charm you have.”

In no time at all, by following Marjorie’s advice to the letter (she even memorises witticisms), Bernice has transformed herself into a popular flapper and even decides to extend her stay. But, in a twist reminiscent of Emma (and it’s fun modern adaptation Clueless), Marjorie herself isn’t so sure what to think of Bernice’s new image.

I’m not going to say more than that about the plot (it’s so difficult to discuss short stories meangingfully while not ruining them!) , but the story really brought home another thing Zeitz discussed in his book. Before the 1920s, unmarried women’s relationships with men were closely supervised. However, their relationships with other women were not so constrained-adults encouraged them to form tight friendships and at all-women colleges, the girls would send things like flowers and chocolate to one another. The flapper, on the other hand, might have ever so many boyfriends while maintaining her distance from other girls, who were now considered competition. That’s reflected in Bernice’s view of Marjorie:

As a matter of fact Marjorie had no female intimates–she considered girls stupid. Bernice on the contrary all through this parent-arranged visit had rather longed to exchange those confidences flavored with giggles and tears that she considered an indispensable factor in all feminine intercourse. But in this respect she found Marjorie rather cold; felt somehow the same difficulty in talking to her that she had in talking to men. Marjorie never giggled, was never frightened, seldom embarrassed, and in fact had very few of the qualities which Bernice considered appropriately and blessedly feminine.

This story, with its makeover, its look at relationships between girls and girls and boys, its exploration of feminity (Marjorie explains to Bernice: “But a girl has to be dainty in person. If she looks like a million dollars she can talk about Russia, ping-pong, or the League of Nations and get away with it.”) brought up a lot of issues in my mind. However, at the same time, I’m inherently mistrustful of Fitzgerald’s characters. How can I trust a man, especially a man who might have ‘invented’ the flapper, to show what’s actually going on in girl’s heads? Is this just how he imagined a flapper might talk in private? Or how he wished flappers talked?

Obviously, there’s lots of food for thought here, so definitely a story I’d recommend. But I’m taking Fitzgerald’s flappers, with their cattiness and seeming independence from other women, with a grain of salt.

(Since writing this review, I went ahead and watched the ‘movie’ version with Shelley Duvall-the creepy wife from The Shining-while knitting. It’s funny-even though it was almost perfectly true to the story in the dialogue and plot, there didn’t seem to be any of the vivacity I always associate with Fitzgerald’s writing on screen. I’d say stick with the story.)

Other Notable Passages
There was another silence, while Marjorie considered whether or not convincing her mother was worth the trouble. People over forty can seldom be permanently convinced of anything. At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.

Charley, who knew as much about the psychology of women as he did of the mental states of Buddhist contemplatives, felt vaguely flattered.