Bernice Bobs Her Head Response

The willingness for curiosity and change is not all so encouraged with warm hands. Ignorance in a sense can be a sin, and understanding that a bridge needs to be made from the past to the present, shapes a better future for all to come. In Bernice Bobs her Hair by F. Scott Fitzgerald, reader step into a stream of bewilderment that change can be possible even in a time period where culture is heavily and deeply rooted. Readers are introduced to the protagonist of the story who takes them in this humanity of bewilderment, and it is safe to say that this cause of bewilderment does not feel strange nor it is negative. The protagonist opens a new way for beings, especially women, to view themselves in a more potential manner rather than the bondage of culture and traditions expected by them from society.

Those who manage to step over the boundary line and make a leap by jumping over the border are the ones that above everything in the end deserve recognition and have made a significant monument at the end of their existence. It is true based on the author’s text that Majorie “made” Bernice become the new woman that she now was. However, the fact is that the change was not with Majorie, but rather with Bernice. Bernice primary lifestyle exists with the ideals and culture of cult of true womanhood. Having known what this role entails and what it means for a woman to belong in this society, Bernice willingly sat still as the barber took the scissors to her hair. Her willingness is what demonstrates that she was the stronger woman who made a change by going over that border and boundary line of what society labels is expected of women during this time period. Leaping from the ideal of pious, domestic, and submissive, to a metamorphosis of a new woman is a landmark that will not be remembered as Majorie’s achievement and transformation, but rather Bernice’s. “I’ve bobbed it Aunt Josephine.” At some point before Bernice bobbed her hair, she knew it was not going to be easily accepted by her family none the less society. Readers must take not that when the protagonist when to cut her hair, she went to a male barber to bob her hair. Bernice could have guessed the thoughts of the barber and those in the shop for society are bound to ridicule and question actions that they do not understand. For a woman of this time, hair is the symbolism of their beauty and honor. It is what attracts males to them. Their hair in a sense is also their identity for recognition. Bernice’s valor to cut her hair, can be said was more so of a gamble to see whether or not society was brave enough to accept change, or rather feel threaten by those who believe there is a need for change. The protagonist’s bobbed hair also serves as a gamble to test whether other women are willing to make a change in the way they view themselves and allow their souls a chance to be free and make decisions without hindrance.