Fitzgerald’s stories focuses on the new generation of America with bold, excessive and infuriating characters. He depicts Jazz Age; the celebration and the loss of the Roaring Twenties. “Bernice Bobs Her Hair”, a short story by Fitzgerald, focuses on the struggle of a beautiful but reserved young girl, Bernice. Although Bernice is the protagonist of the story but other characters also lay a very important role in determining her character and fate.
Fitzgerald creates a contrast between the two leading characters of this short story, Bernice and Marjorie. Cixous talks about these contrasting females in her article The Laugh of Medusa. She differentiates between the old and the new women and says that now is the time when this distinction between these two should be blurred. But Fitzgerald fails to blur this distinction, infact he accentuates this difference through the character of Bernice, pertaining to the old, and Marjorie, pertaining to the new woman. Bernice holds on to her old values, is shy and reserved. She is “appropriately and blessedly feminine”. She does not know how to attract young men, how to indulge in an active conversation or any other things “in fashion”. Marjorie on the other hand is someone up to date. She is pursued by a lot of young men and knows how to converse.
Helene Cixous’ main argument in her article is that “women must write”. She argues that women must write for themselves. Women must write about women. She negates the idea that men should