All Girls for Herself in Bernice Cuts Her Hair Imagine a fragile glass carousel, a menagerie, if you will, of adolescent social classes and structures. The animals always move without thinking about what precedes them, each measuring their own height compared to their neighbors. If you're not up to par or fall behind, fear not, just throw a jagged rock and shatter Mr. Popularity in front, take his place and the carousel spins again. There is no world outside, nothing matters more than this fragile status-seeking ambition and the taboos, requirements and rewards that come with it. Every action is fair game, whatever it takes to achieve your supremacy is allowed and accepted. Fitzgerald's "Bernice Bobs Her Hair," from her collection The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald, significantly revolves around this "semi-cruel world of adolescence" (26), where, as the character Marjorie eloquently states, "of these days it's every girl for herself" (30). Fitzgerald opens the story with a dance, the setting itself creating an immediate and vivid image of the rotating social classes. Teenagers enter, whirl, and some: "Some disappointed deer, caught halfway across the floor as they were about to cut, ducked listlessly against the walls" (26), whirl straight out of the ring of popularity. These unfortunately pathetic young people failed to cross the finish line, because "it was not like the wild Christmas dances - these summer hops were considered simply pleasantly warm and exciting" (26); they were neither kind nor defiant enough to climb the social ladder. Apparently, charm and wit gain popularity: those who don't have them have to take a seat on the sidelines. Male/female relationships are also a crucial and continuous... middle of paper... help in hand. She passes Warren's house, "and impulsively she put down her baggage, and swinging her braids like pieces of rope she hurled them against the wooden porch... She laughed again, no longer holding back." (47). The tables of the social world are turned once again, and the less privileged gain the ultimate advantage. Mocked, forced to reform and then punished, Bernice seems, with this last defiant action, to recommend abandoning the pathetic social system, which ultimately gained her neither height nor length. She simply moved to a different place and almost lost her identity in the process. Social structures remain a glass carousel; the more you conform and lead, the more quickly it shatters beneath you. Works Cited Fitzgerald, F. Scott. "Bernice cuts her hair." The Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989.