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Theme Of Bernice Bobs Her Hair

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Social competition is a very important central theme in the short story, “Bernice Bobs Her Hair”. F. Scott Fitzgerald does an excellent job portraying social competition when it comes to females and competition between popularity and acceptance. Girls can be quite viscous and its quite evident in this short story; one example, in particular, is the competition between Bernice and Marjorie. Bernice and Marjorie engage in competition with each other over many things including; Fitting into society, the values of a woman, boys, and each other’s reputation. F Scott Fitzgerald’s short story becomes a ruthless competition of a “new woman” between two main characters. Who will win? You’ll just have to keep on reading…
In the beginning of the …show more content…

Marjorie’s value of a woman is modernized, it fits the description of what a flapper was in the 1920s. This can connect to another one of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s books, The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald does an excellent job portraying the values of women in the 1920’s. In the book, The Great Gatsby, when Daisy gave birth to her child, she hoped that her newly born daughter would grow up and hold the values that Marjorie portrays. “I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool – that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool”. This is a perfect example that connects to Marjorie’s view of womanhood, according to these two characters, women should be dainty, have charm and have perfect appearance.
One of the biggest conflicts between Bernice and Marjorie is one over a boy named Warren. Warren grew up across the street from Marjorie, he was “crazy about her” since the beginning; however, the feelings were not reciprocated on Marjorie’s behalf. As the story progresses, Marjorie takes on the task to transform Bernice into a new woman. Bernice’s new appeal is soon taken into consideration when Warren gains an interest in the new Bernice. Even though Marjorie didn’t have feelings for Warren, she still became jealous. Marjorie’s new goal was to destroy the relationship between Bernice and Warren. Marjorie becomes successful in accomplishing her goals by putting Bernice’s reputation at risk.
Another example of social competition

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