What is the climax of Bernice Bobs Her Hair?

Initial Situation

Bernice visits her cousin, Marjorie, for the summer.

The set-up to this story is simple – Marjorie is a ten, but her cousin Bernice is a zero. We see evidence of this at the country club dance, where Marjorie basically has to flirtatiously blackmail people into dancing with the boring Bernice. The difference between the two cousins couldn't be more obvious. We get the feeling that Marjorie just can't wait to get her cousin off her back and enjoy the rest of her summer.

Conflict

Bernice overhears a conversation (about herself) between Marjorie and Mrs. Harvey; Bernice and Marjorie quarrel.

The conflict here is quite a literal one – Bernice, who overhears her cousin trash-talking her, confronts Marjorie, and the two of them get into a (verbal) fight. Marjorie's sharp-tongued attacks on her rather feeble cousin are effective, and we see what the two of them are really made of – at this stage, at least. The conflict between cousins sets us up to view Marjorie as the strong character and Bernice as the weak, submissive one. This kind of throws us for a little loop when the "Complication" comes along…

Complication

Motivated by Marjorie's criticism, Bernice decides to try to learn how to be popular.

Bernice's change of heart certainly throws a big fat wrench into the works here. While we were ready to accept Bernice's anticipated return home to Eau Claire, she throws us a curveball and decides to stay. We're not sure what's going to happen as these two antagonistic cousins attempt to work together to reinvent Bernice's image, and, like Bernice, we feel some trepidation about it.

Climax

Under Marjorie's tutelage, Bernice becomes a social success – so much so that Warren transfers his affections to her. Marjorie confronts Bernice about Warren.

Things are going well, but there's trouble in paradise. As soon as Bernice threatens her status as queen bee, Marjorie turns against her cousin. This flip from mentor to antagonist is a distinct landmark in the story – we know that things will never be the same between Bernice and Marjorie.

Suspense

Marjorie exposes Bernice's "line" about bobbing her hair at a party.

This scene, which takes place at an afternoon bridge party, is one of the greatest moments of discomfort in the story. Marjorie, jealous of Bernice's success, reveals the fact that Bernice doesn't actually intend to cut her hair. The resultant challenging curiosity that she faces from all of her new friends throws her into a position of anxiety and uncertainty.

Denouement

Bernice bobs her hair.

Finally, here it is – the moment we've all been waiting for since the title. Bernice does in fact go to the Sevier Barber Shop and bob her hair, and the story shows us at last what we've been alternately hoping for and dreading all along. The haircut is a disaster, and everything Bernice has worked for is immediately destroyed with the snip of a pair of shears. All of a sudden, Bernice is alone – her new "friends" abandon her (including Warren), and there's no way she can return to her old, sedate life.

Conclusion

Bernice takes revenge on Marjorie by chopping off her hair.

This incredibly satisfying conclusion settles the score: Marjorie gets her comeuppance for being a manipulative, jealous, and cold-hearted villain. The conclusion is both resolution and irresolution, for while we get the undeniable thrill of seeing Bernice get her revenge, we're also not sure about her own future. That's part of what makes this story so enjoyable, though – the uncertainty is exciting and strange, and we hope that Bernice goes out with her new-found determination and will and becomes strong woman she has the potential to be.

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on F. Scott Fitzgerald's Bernice Bobs Her Hair. Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

Brief Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald

Though he was born in the American Midwest, Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald—known as Scott Fitzgerald to personal acquaintances—lived most of his early life in New York, where his father worked. He enrolled at Princeton University in 1913, where he honed his craft by writing for the Nassau Literature Review and pursued various independent works, including an early rejected novel. When his academic performance suffered, he decided to drop out of Princeton and join the U.S. Army as a commissioned officer. Not long afterwards, Fitzgerald met Zelda Sayre, who would famously become his wife. The glowing success of This Side of Paradise in 1920 marked the beginning of their marriage—and as Scott’s career gained traction, the Fitzgeralds’ tumultuous relationship would become as sensational as his fiction. Through the 1920s and 1930s, living with Zelda as an expatriate in Paris, Fitzgerald wrote over 60 short stories for the Saturday Evening Post alone, as well as others for Collier’s Weekly, Esquire, and Redbook. The Great Gatsby, his best-acclaimed novel, was published to some popular success in 1925; Tender is the Night, published in 1934, was less warmly received. Mental illness and alcoholism ruined Fitzgerald’s health by the time he reached middle age, and mounting expenses for Zelda’s hospital treatments—she was first admitted for schizophrenia in 1930—left the writer struggling financially. He sustained himself by writing for Hollywood until his death in 1940. Critics have subsequently remarked on how this writer who so eloquently captured the decadence, excess, and crippling ennui of the “Jazz Age” lived a life cut short by these very things.

Other Books Related to Bernice Bobs Her Hair

Social competition and its hollow rewards is a key theme in “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” and in many of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s other works. The Great Gatsby famously discusses this theme across class and racial boundaries, and several of Fitzgerald’s earlier short stories touch upon it from various angles. Similar to “Bernice Bobs Her Hair,” “Dice, Brassknuckles & Guitar” is a relatively lighthearted short story about a poor Southern man who finds himself on the social periphery of New Jersey’s wealthy young people. “A Diamond as Big as the Ritz,” meanwhile, dispenses with Fitzgerald’s usual realist or semi-realist style in order to satirize old American wealth of the kind seen in “Bernice Bobs Her Hair.” Other coming-of-age stories from this literary period tend to be more serious and introspective; the closest match to “Bernice Bobs Her Hair,” structurally and tonally, comes in the works of Roald Dahl, some 25 years later. Dahl’s short stories for adults were published in nearly all of the magazines to which Fitzgerald submitted stories, and follow a structure leading to some kind of “zinger” or “twist” or otherwise punchy climax like the ending of “Bernice Bobs Her Hair,” albeit usually darker. Dahl’s “Dip in the Pool” is a prime example of this. Structurally, the story resembles the build-and-payoff of “Bernice Bobs Her Hair,” while thematically it discusses the financial desperation and self-destructive gambling that Fitzgerald discusses in several of his other stories.

Key Facts about Bernice Bobs Her Hair

• Full Title: “Bernice Bobs Her Hair”
• When Written: 1920
• Where Written: New York
• When Published: May 1, 1920
• Literary Period: Jazz Age, Modernism
• Genre: Short Story, Realism, Coming-of-Age
• Setting: The Harveys’ home; various country clubs of the New England elite
• Climax: Bernice succumbs to pressure and gets a short bob haircut.
• Antagonist: Marjorie Harvey
• Point of View: Third Person

Extra Credit for Bernice Bobs Her Hair

Dear Annabel. This story was inspired by a letter which F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote to his sister, Annabel, on how to win boys’ attention. The full letter is archived, and available to read in the Complete Correspondence of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Counter-Culture Cut. The first bob haircut, which appeared in 1909, was inspired by Joan of Arc, who wore her hair short. Far from having connotations of saintly purity, however, it took the reputation of the counter-culture “flapper” generation.

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