Fitzgerald, ''Bernice Bobs Her Hair'' (online) -- Jerz: EL150 (Intro to Literary Study)
"'I want to be a society vampire, you see.'"
The beginning of the Foster book talked about connecting characters to concepts like Satan and vampires, and it really helped me pick up on some things. I think Marjorie is the devil because she makes Bernice compromise who she really is, in other words sell her soul. She even makes Bernice wear a hellish-looking "dark red" dress that she wouldn't normally have worn. After Bernice has gotten her hair cut, Marjorie turns to Warren "with serpentlike intensity." In the Bible, Satan is often represented with snake imagery. After Bernice realizes how Marjorie has manipulated her, she in turn becomes just as nasty as Marjorie is by cutting off her hair. In fact, Bernice imagines her hair as blood when she goes to get it cut off. In other words, after Marjorie the Satanic vampire has sucked Bernice's blood, Bernice joins the undead and commits an act of vampirism by cutting off Marjorie's hair/blood. This sure is one scary story!
Comments (2)
Matthew, great observations! Way to use the chapters we read in Foster's book to apply the concepts to the text of the work we are reading! This is exactly the sort of thing I think Dr. Jerz will be expecting of us throughout this semester!
I had similar thoughts about Bernice "selling out" and abandoning who she really was to become something else (only I described her dehumanization in relation to machines) in my close reading paper.
Once again, great job!
Posted by Lorin Schumacher | January 26, 2007 9:21 AM
Posted on January 26, 2007 09:21
Hooray, Matt and Lorin, for noticing why I had you read this story and this chapter together... I don't always choose the readings so that they go together like this, and I didn't expect everyone to blog about this and nothing else, but I'm glad to see evidence that you are looking hard to make logical connections, and then build on them to make your own argument.
Posted by Dennis G. Jerz | January 26, 2007 9:45 AM
Posted on January 26, 2007 09:45