It's Every Girl for Herself in Bernice Bobs Her Hair Essay

The novel, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is about societal difference between men and women the 1920s. Throughout the novel this theme is played through our main characters: Tom, Myrtle, and Daisy. Fitzgerald uses the possessive relationships between these characters to enlighten the reader about women’s social ranking. He demonstrates how men were able to control women by making them feel inferior. The author describes the importance of social class for women in the 1920’s through the possessive and ultimately destructive relationship of Tom and Myrtle.

In all aspects of life, Humans spend an incredible amount of time wondering if their class is high enough and acceptable. We tend to care so much about what others think of us, that we expect so much more from ourselves than what is possible. Which, in short represents that we are not living for ourselves. The lives we were given to enjoy as a whole and embrace. Rather we are living someone else’s life, which locks us in a dark prison of expectations and the key to freedom gets thrown away. Living a life where you care so much about what others think of you is as if we are nothing but sheep being herded to the final slaughterhouse! In “Rocking Horse Winner”, the author D.H. Lawrence paints a portrait of how the mother Hester can never truly be satisfied with what she poseses since she is always worried about the status and ranking of her class. The most important concern to her is looking respectable, presentable, and nice. In addition, in the story “A Goodman Is Hard To Find”, the author Flannery O’Connor paints the same portrait representing how the Grandmother always has to look presentable, and how she always has to look like a lady. Both of these characters in both stories have the same problem in common. They both are haunted by the fact that they

The relationship that Tom and Myrtle’s yield allows Fitzgerald to critique the life’s of the wealthy, old-money class in 1920s New York. By showing Tom’s affair with a working-class woman, Nick reveals Tom’s ugliest behavior as well as the brutality of class divisions during the roaring twenties. Critics Ian and Michelle McMechan in their article ‘Gatsby’s women’ identify how the tones in which Fitzgerald draws Myrtle are mainly grey and brown and she hails from a ‘valley of ashes’. Myrtle’s appeal, in contrast to Daisy’s, is raw and earthy: ‘She had changed her dress to a brown figured muslin, which stretched tight over her rather wide hips’ as Nick notes on first meeting her. Her ‘intense vitality’ expands in Tom’s presence until ‘she seemsto be revolving on a noisy creaking pivot through the smoky air.’ Myrtle appears as some form of marionette in fact a grotesque fairground attraction doll. This ‘doll’ who is used by Tom with a purpose of comfort, but such desires lead Tom to cheat on the mother of his child and react with brutality to the women who he carries out the

One of the biggest conflicts between Bernice and Marjorie is one over a boy named Warren. Warren grew up across the street from Marjorie, he was “crazy about her” since the beginning; however, the feelings were not reciprocated on Marjorie’s behalf. As the story progresses, Marjorie takes on the task to transform Bernice into a new woman. Bernice’s new appeal is soon taken into consideration when Warren gains an interest in the new Bernice. Even though Marjorie didn’t have feelings for Warren, she still became jealous. Marjorie’s new goal was to destroy the relationship between Bernice and Warren. Marjorie becomes successful in accomplishing her goals by putting Bernice’s reputation at risk.

Social status often establishes one 's credibility and integrity within a society. The power that social status has, encourages people to heavily focus on it. With this focus on social status ever pressing, one’s identity often gets intertwined with and reliant on their place in the hierarchy of society. People become fixated on one idea they have of a person in a certain social class, that anybody who breaks out of specific stereotypes may often cause anger amongst others. In the short story “Greenleaf” by Flannery O’Connor, the main character, Mrs. May, is obsessive about the way others perceive her and her place in society. Mr. May’s identity is so strictly tied to her desire to get to a higher social class and her notions how society

Have you ever wished that someone had given you a guide on how live the right way? Jamaica Kincaid does just that in her short story, Girl. The narrative is presented as a set of life instructions to a girl by her mother to live properly in Antigua in the 1980’s. While the setting of the story is not expressly stated by the author in the narrative, the reader is able to understand the culture for which Girl was written.

Initially, Mrs. Mallard reacts with great sadness over the news of her husband’s death. Knowing that Mrs. Mallard suffers from “heart trouble”, Josephine, Mrs. Mallard’s sister decides to “hint” her the news of Brently’s death in “broken sentences”. Josephine assumes that Mrs. Mallard “[loves]” her husband, and naturally

In the period of the 1920’s, there was a certain status of wealth that was difficult to achieve. There were two societal classes consisting of those with wealth from prior generations, and those who worked to earn it themselves. Tom, Daisy, and Nick, who represented the old money society did not have to work hard, unlike Gatsby which he represented the new money and they had to work to earn money. People like Gatsby, who gained their wealth on their own often fought for the approval from the upper class who inherited their wealth. Rather than having new money and old money, people who tried achieving the American Dream and ended up in failure usually they end up like George and Myrtle Wilson In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the notion that social norms in the upper class depict the idea that being apart of it was impossible unless they were born in it was expressed through Daisy’s rejection of Gatsby because of the corrupt way in which he gained his wealth, making his American Dream unattainable.

. Bernice’s cousin, Marjorie, is the socialite of her town. The Queen Bee. All the girls want to be her; all the guys want to be with her. She has Warren, her unofficial boyfriend, wrapped around her finger. But everyone cannot see the real Marjorie, Her true insecure side. They don’t understand that she puts them down to make her feel better about herself, trying to make herself feel superior. Marjorie is putting on a front to give the idea that she is happy and perfect. Underneath, she is a cold and jealous person. She is the one pressuring Bernice, not knowing that it is the way she copes with her own insecurities. Marjorie, although more confident than Bernice, also shows

Women were not equal to men during the era of the 1920’s. In “The Great Gatsby,” Fitzgerald represents a negative, misogynistic, stereotypical view of the various types of women during the era of the 1920’s. During the that time, women were not portrayed in a positive light., By writing a book centered around that time period, it causes one to wonder the message Fitzgerald was trying to illustrate about women and what he was saying about society as a whole. Fitzgerald represents the view of women within the 20’s by depicting each character as a representation of the many stereotypes occurring within that era. The main characters Daisy, Myrtle, and Jordan each display pertinent roles within the story representing how women’s roles were

It is interesting to note that school, the place where the boy in the song goes to exact his revenge, of course, has classes. High school is a fairly accurate model of social classes in the real world, though these differences are more trivial than in the real world, but they are there. The popular people, the upper classmen, the jocks, the cheerleaders, these are the rich of the high school jungle. The unpopular kids, the lower classmen, all of the people who fall outside the spectrum of normal are the poor, the social pariahs of high school. In school, popularity is a commodity, and like the real world, some have more than others. Popularity in school however isn’t money per say, more like power. The less powerful people spend every day seeing the very powerful, and some envy them this power. Some try to improve themselves to become more popular, some people try to improve and just have bad luck, some give up, some go their own way, and some try to take the power from the powerful with force. All of these different types of people, and that’s just in a school, think about how it applies in a grander scheme.

The main theme throughout Fitzgerald’s novel is that wealth leads to corruption. Several characters in the novel have corrupt aspects, such as Jay Gatsby, Tom Buchanan, Daisy Buchanan, and Myrtle Wilson. This can be seen through the indirect and direct characterization of the characters. Each of the characters corruptness is evident in their perspectives and actions. The motivation of wealth also corrupts an individual. Wealth makes a person act a certain way and do certain things. Fitzgerald uses imagery to embody the personality of Myrtle as being corrupt. Fitzgerald’s use of irony shows that society wants to be with you only if you have money. In order to be with someone you have to be up to their standard.

The social hierarchy is influenced by the amount of money one owns which determines whether one can attain their dream. By creating apparent social classes within ‘The Great Gatsby’ – old money, new money and no money, Fitzgerald strongly suggests that American society is intensely stigmatised. Daisy, Tom and Jordan represent the elite social class of society where despite their problems and failures they are always protected and immune by their wealth. Tom refers to Gatsby as ‘Mr Nobody from nowhere” and a “common swindler who would have to steal the ring he put on her finger” as he boasts about his hereditary wealth compared to the other distinct elite group of society who acquire their wealth through business deals, which are sometimes corrupt. Although Fitzgerald mainly attacks the rich, by making them look judgemental, superior and selfish, evidently the lower class of society are vulnerable within American society. This is shown where so many, like Myrtle,

Fitzgerald, in his sarcastic novel The Great Gatsby, frequently shows how racism and classism seriously influence the possibilities of achieving American dreams in obscure methods. The novel details Gatsby’s achievements and dream including Daisy, and makes comparison with other people in different races and classes indirectly but visibly. The fact that, though Gatsby is much wealthier than those in East Egg, he has never achieved the American dream, never owned Daisy truly and never acquired respect, but rumours, due he isn’t born in high class and makes money through bootleg. To some extent, the miserable end of Gatsby is the reflection of the disparity of classism. Gatsby’s mansion reminds people of the feasibility of making the American dream come true. However, his unexpected death that is not caught by police, but killed by Wilson, a white man in mid class, proves that it is related to races and classes closely. Fitzgerald takes us into the suffering of Gatsby to show us that the American dream is like a shell company, which makes everyone look forward to their future with great expectations, but only certain people can truly reach it because people are not standing on the same starting line.

For the example conflict of how in Great Gatsby there is a fine divided line between the upper class and lower such as upper class living in East or West egg, women are expected to wear fancy dresses and luxurious jewelry, act modern and attend grand parties and meet other men and not allowed to work. Men are expected to get more and more richer by earning the new money and have the old money to show off. Lower class are supposed to be isolated from the upper class and be under the rule of upper class.Compared to the society Celia is surrounded, the upper class would be the popular students and lower class would be the less known or to describe them would be geeks or nerds and etc. Girls such as Sandy Firestone have set up the standards of High school similar to Great Gatsby of wearing fashionable clothing,certain people that should be near you, being fit but instead of not working, Sandy and her followers don’t do assignments as they seem as less important to them than their own social