Bernice Bobs Her Hair

I kind of enjoyed this reading. I do feel like I can actually relate to Bernice, and the pressures that she felt to be "popular". Although she was pretty, and sweet, her dullness took over all the positives and made people not want to be around her. I think everyone has felt these pressures at one time or another. That pressure that makes you think that you need to change for people to like you. All through high school I feel like 90% of things that I did, and that I was involved in was only to make people like me, and to make myself more popular, and to make more friends. But I've come to a point where I am content with who I am and I pretty much just do what I want, and thankfully, I still have friends. (hah) It was a pretty easy read.

This nature of identity that Fitzgerald represents in "Bernice Bob's Her Hair" is the nature that your identity cannot change. There is always some room for improvement with anyone, and who they really want to be. That improvement can change people's view of you, but that identity is still the same. When Bernice was oblivious to the fact that boys didn't want to "cut in" and dance with her at the dance, or that she really wasn't that popular, she was more content with who she was and her identity. But when she overheard her cousin talking to her aunt about how "hopeless she is", she realized that she wasn't, and she needed to change her identity to become just like everyone else, she felt like she needed to do something drastic. This whole "bobbing of the hair" must have been a pretty bold move back then, otherwise people wouldn't have made such a fuss about it. Maybe Bernice felt like she accomplished something by "not bluffing", and really getting her hair bobbed. But she should feel almost like she surrendered to these people's opinions of her. She should feel defeated. By the end of the story though, there is this sense of calmness, and a feeling of Bernice moving on from this defeat, and her coming to the realization that she doesn't need to conform to other peoples ways, and what everyone wants her to be.