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The theme of social class in literature
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In Fitzgerald’s “Bernice Bobs Her Hair”, Bernice and Marjorie portray the social standing of tradition and modernity. Bernice, a traditional wealthy girl and the main character of the story, does not have a high social standing; however, because of certain events in the story, Bernice’s personality changes from a shy and obedient girl to a strong independent woman. Ultimately, Bernice’s action of asking Marjorie to teach her how to become popular in the modern world is what started her journey towards her realization of her need to be her own person because the action itself is the reason why important events, crucial to Bernice’s development, occur in the story. As the story begins, Bernice is completely content with being herself. She does not question why other girls who are not as pretty or as rich as she is are able to be more popular than she is. Despite being content with herself, she is saddened that she is not very popular among the boys she dances with at the party. Marjorie, on the other hand, is very popular among the boys. In the key scene with Marjorie, Bernice displays that she wishes to form a relationship with her. With this longing to get to know Marjorie, the audience learns that Bernice is envious of Marjorie and the popularity that she possesses. For example, Fitzgerald writes that Marjorie “never giggled, was never frightened, seldom embarrassed, and in fact had very few of the qualities which Bernice considered appropriately and blessedly female” (Fitzgerald, pg. 4). Although she does not understand how Marjorie could possess these qualities, she does understand that these are the qualities that make her popular; and she is envious that she does not have these qualities. As part two of the story ends, Be... ... middle of paper ... ...e to teach her how to become more popular, Bernice is able to acquire these masculine traits, but she is able to surpass Marjorie because she retains some of her feminine qualities that Marjorie does not have. Marjorie, becoming jealous of Bernice, then tricks her into bobbing her hair. By cutting her hair, Bernice is now more masculine than Marjorie is. Because bobbing hair is not yet popular, Bernice loses her popularity; but will be able to become more popular than Marjorie once the Flapper Movement occurs. Once Bernice does learn that Marjorie tricked her, she decides to cut off her hair. This action shows that Bernice is a much different person than when the story began: She is now an independent woman who is confident in being her own person. Therefore, Bernice in fact gets the last laugh because Marjorie ironically helped her to realize her own individuality.
On August 3, 1979, a female was assaulted and raped in her apartment. Victor Burnette, 19 years old, was brought in as a suspect and the female said that he was the perpetrator. Burnette was convicted based on pubic hairs found at the scene. He spent seven years in prison and was released on parole in ’87. Two decades later, Burnette asked to have his case reworked using DNA analysis and was found to be not guilty. The serologist who worked his case was Mary Jane Burton. By the time Burnette cleared his name, at least five other people had been exonerated from their convictions due to Burton’s evidence. (“Victor”) Hair analysis has been a part of forensic science since the beginning. However, some have begun to question the reliability of
Two years after their friendship sprouted Marjorie began controlling Bernie and limiting his time away from her. People couldn’t help but notice and they pitied Bernie. People did not consider Bernie a pathetic imp, instead they directed their ill judgment at Marjorie.
Barbara also uses a heavy hand with the allusions in this section – “The whole thing would be a lot easier if I could just skate through it like Lily Tomlin in one of her waitressing skits, but I was raised by the absurd Booker T. Washingtonian precept that says: If you’re going to do something, do it well.” She tries to establish an emotional connection with the reader – it might have worked on me if I knew who Lily Tomlin was, though understandably she wrote this novel for a different age set – that explains a part of her good character. She shows ...
The reader is first introduced to Francie when she is at the age of eleven. Francie is an average, normal girl growing up in Brooklyn in the year 1912. She doesn't have many friends and her family doesn't have much money, however she enjoys reading and is constantly finding ways to amuse herself. Being as young and innocent as she is, life seems nearly perfect for Francie. Eventually though, Francie realizes that this isn't the case and, in a sense, looses a bit of her innocence.
Nella Larsen’s novel presents us with a good view of women’s issues of the early 20th century. We see in the two characters seemingly different interpretations of what race, sexuality, and class can and should be used for. For Clare, passing takes her into a whole new world of advantages that she would not have had if she had remained a part of the African-American community. She gains social status and can be seen as an object of sexual desire for many people, not only the black community. Irene leads herself to think that passing is unnecessary, and that she can live a totally happy life remaining who she is. What she fails to realize is that she is jealous of Clare’s status and sometimes passes herself subconsciously. Larsen presents to us the main point of the book – that the root of the love, hate, desire, and rejection that Irene holds for Clare is a result of social standing, not only passing and sexuality.
She values education, as indicated by her dedication to her Master’s thesis. She presents herself and her middle class status through her clothing, cleanliness, and diction. Her class is highlighted when Helen and Bernadette enter Cabrini Green. In the car, Bernadette double checks her arsenal in her purse, her mace and pepper spray, which Helen teases her about and condemns. She is undoubtedly more familiar with the realities of living in Cabrini Green. Electing to “dress conservatively,” and perhaps because of her association with Helen, causes the men of Cabrini Green to automatically assume Bernadette’s difference from them. This difference is rooted in class. Moreover, Bernadette avoids the area and hesitates to enter when Helen demands they study Ruthie Jean’s disappearance. Her mental and physical separation from Cabrini Green is a result of her
Often times authors develop their characters or plots from people and events in their lives. F. Scott Fitzgerald is known for “describing in semi-autobiographical fiction the privileged lives of wealthy, aspiring socialites” which in turn created a new breed of characters in the 1920’s (Willhite). It is said that “His tragic life was an ironic analog to his romantic art” (“Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald”). Fitzgerald’s most famous work,The Great Gatsby “extends and synthesizes the themes that pervade all of his fiction: the callous indifference of wealth, the hollowness of the American success myth, and the sleaziness of the contemporary scene” (“Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald”). In the novel Daisy Buchanan and Gatsby’s relationship are a representation of his own marriage to Zelda Sayre. Fitzgerald depicts his forced and uneasy marriage with Zelda through his characterization and actions of Daisy Buchanan.
The feature “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” is collected in Fitzgerald’s book Flapper and Philosophy that published in 1920. Flapper, “a ‘new breed’ of young Western women in the 1920s who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior.”(Wikipedia, par. 1) For readers from different cultural background, their understandings of the story are considerably different. For example, a woman brought up in a conservative culture, she probably believes marriages are “tiresome colorless,” and wishes to be a “beautiful bundle of [cloth]” that has no own mind. (Fitzgerald, 7) In turn, her interpretation of reading is truly subjective and could be misreading. Flappers are symbols of liberation, feminism and the powers of women. By doing what exactly Marjorie says, (praising males, announcing the plan of bobbing her hair, making bold, humorous and fresh remakes), Bernice becomes well liked. In a modern western woman’s eye, “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” illustrated a transformation of a traditional, boring country girl to a modern, flipper, pleasure-seeking woman who liberate herself from the suppression of their male counterparts. “Twenty minutes later….Her hair was not curly, and now it lay in lank lifeless blocks on the both sides of her suddenly
In the short story “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” by Scott Fitzgerald, Bernice is pressured to be like others and to conform to society’s changing morals. Peer pressure put on by her cousin, Marjorie, and from society causes Bernice to become insecure and unsure of herself. The stresses of peer pressure are the reason that Bernice trades her important moral choices for those of the ever changing society. This results in a further understanding of peer pressure as a negative and positive tool. Marjorie pressures Bernice to change the way she looks, acts, and talks so that she can become more “popular”. Consequentially, the peer pressure drives Bernice to bob her hair, an action that is not positively looked upon in the early 1920’s.
Dubbed the ‘roaring 20s’, because of the massive rise in America’s economy, this social and historical context is widely remembered for its impressive parties and sensationalist attitude. However, Fitzgerald also conveys a more sinister side to this culture through numerous affairs, poverty and a rampage of organised crime. By exposing this moral downfall, Fitzgerald reveals to the responder his value of the American dream and his belief of its decline. As a writer, Fitzgerald was always very much concerned with the present times, consequently, his writing style and plot reflects his own experiences of this era. So similar were the lives of Fitzgerald’s characters to his own that he once commented, “sometimes I don't know whether Zelda (his wife) and I are real or whether we are characters in one of my novels”. In 1924, Fitzgerald was affected by Zelda’s brief affair with a young French pilot, provoking him to lock her in their house. A construction of this experience can be seen in the way Fitzgerald depicts the 1290s context. For example in ‘The Great Gatsby’, there are numerous affairs and at one point, Mr Wilson locks up his wife to pre...
Henry James’s “Daisy Miller” represents the societal views and the conformed way of living. This short story starts off in Vevey, Switzerland where Daisy meets Winterbourne through her brother Randolph. Winterbourne accompanies Daisy in a walk. Throughout the story Daisy is considered a flirt because she is accompanied by men. Each time Winterbourne crosses her path; there is gossip about how improper it is to be walking around with so many men because she is a young unmarried upper class lady until she finally reaches her demise because of the fever. Through James’s representation of their disapproved relationship, he shows how a human’s freedom is constricted by society. James suggests that people do not have complete freedom because of how society views others and the way they were raised by their parents. His portrayal of an opinionated Mrs. Costello shows us that social standards are based on the judgment of others. This portrayal of Mrs. Costello also shows the double-standard given off in society. The way the story is written, it shows how everyone has their own social view on the world. This writing style is complex in the way that a person will reach an understanding of how they view the societal world. Through the story we see the different judgments passed on Daisy from several other characters. The form of the story also lets us decide on how we view Miss Daisy as well as other characters by showing us the opinions given by the characters. This text suggests that we might not pass judgment so quickly on others and helps us to look at society as whole and not into divisions of what we think is appropriate behavior.
One incident, for example, is when Claudia, Frieda, Pecola, and Maureen Peal, a well-loved “beauty” of Lorain, are walking home from school. As the girls saunter down the street, they begin to bicker. The conversation ends with Maureen stomping away and establishing the fact that she is indeed “cute”. Claudia then thinks to herself, “If she was cute--and if anything could be believed, she was--then we were not. And what did that mean? We were lesser. Nicer, brighter, but still lesser. Dolls we could destroy, but we could not destroy the honey voices of parents and aunts, the obedience in the eyes of our peers, the slippery light in the eyes of our teachers when they encouraged the Maureen Peals of the world. What was the secret? What did we lack? Why was it important? And so what?. . . And all the time we knew that Maureen Peal was not the Enemy and not worthy of such intense hatred.
To begin with, the protagonist of the story, Mrs. Mallard, helps us understand the life woman had to live in the 1890’s. In those specific years, between the late 1800’s and the early 1900,s woman
“Girls wear jeans and cut their hair short and wear shirts and boots because it is okay to be a boy; for a girl it is like promotion. But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading, according to you, because secretly you believe that being a girl is degrading” (McEwan 55-56). Throughout the history of literature women have been viewed as inferior to men, but as time has progressed the idealistic views of how women perceive themselves has changed. In earlier literature women took the role of being the “housewife” or the household caretaker for the family while the men provided for the family. Women were hardly mentioned in the workforce and always held a spot under their husband’s wing. Women were viewed as a calm and caring character in many stories, poems, and novels in the early time period of literature. During the early time period of literature, women who opposed the common role were often times put to shame or viewed as rebels. As literature progresses through the decades and centuries, very little, but noticeable change begins to appear in perspective to the common role of women. Women were more often seen as a main character in a story setting as the literary period advanced. Around the nineteenth century women were beginning to break away from the social norms of society. Society had created a subservient role for women, which did not allow women to stand up for what they believe in. As the role of women in literature evolves, so does their views on the workforce environment and their own independence. Throughout the history of the world, British, and American literature, women have evolved to become more independent, self-reliant, and have learned to emphasize their self-worth.
middle of paper ... ... ‘I’m asleep, in a trance.so warm, so good.so bright, so peaceful.’ substantiates that Miss Julie becomes subordinate to Jean, and the battle of sexes provides Jean with a more dominant characteristic. Finally, throughout the play, gender inequality and the battle of sexes are explored to the degree that these were the responsible factors for Miss Julie’s naturalistic fate, even though the battle of classes is a recurring theme throughout the play.