Bernice Bobs Her Hair: Metaphors 3 key examples

Here, Fitzgerald describes what an onlooker would see if they looked toward the country club at night from the nearby golf course. The depiction of the country club windows as a "yellow expanse" over a "very black and wavy ocean" paints a picture of the club's glowing windows standing out against a dark, mysterious backdrop. The contrast of the "ocean" and the crowd inside the club also points to the exclusivity of the social set who are permitted to be inside.

This “ocean” is a way of describing the vastly divided social dynamics of the time through physical language. Country clubs in the early 20th century were bastions of affluence and old-world prejudices. They often segregated members by class and status and deliberately excluded those who weren’t white and Christian. To emphasize this, Fitzgerald lumps together members of the servant class (the caddies and chauffeurs) as a dark and undifferentiated "ocean" outside the club’s walls. They and other non-elite people like “the golf professional’s deaf sister” are peripheral to the club's well-heeled clientele and can only look in on their activities from the outside. Through this visual contrast, the author shows the rigid class distinctions of early-20th-century America and underscores the sense of exclusion felt by those who were not part of the upper class. The light glowing from the club windows makes it seem like a welcoming, pleasant beacon of social gathering. However, as the reader soon finds out, it’s actually anything but pleasant and relaxing when one gets inside.

The metaphor of young, eligible men as "hunted partridges" illustrates how these bachelors are viewed and treated in social settings. Describing wealthy eligible boys as "hunted partridges" compares them to game birds, suggesting that society preys on them for their economic assets in the marriage market. This comparison reflects how these boys are targeted by women like Bernice and Marjorie who are looking for advantageous marriages. Just as partridges are reared for the hunt, these young men are groomed from birth for their role in society’s marital sports. The wealthier and more influential they are, the more intensely they are likely to be “hunted.” The comparison underlines the social rituals of the era, where marriage was less about romance and more about strategic alliances and preserving wealth. Although the stakes were higher for young women—who often had no access to money or safety outside of marriage and had even less power in the selection process for spouses—men were also often treated like prized objects in this context.

As this metaphor follows a description of older women gossiping and passing judgment, the “hunted partridge” idea is part of Fitzgerald’s work with satire in “Bernice Bobs Her Hair.” In passages like this, the author points to the absurdity and superficiality of these aristocratic mating rituals. Describing the young men as “partridges” criticizes the calculated nature of social interactions at country-club events. The narrator's choice to depict the men as passive victims of the marriage "hunt" mocks the underlying motives of these gatherings. They’re supposed to be fun, but they’re really anything but casual entertainment. This underscores how orchestrated and predatory the pursuit of romantic partnerships could be in this era.

The metaphors of the barbershop as a "guillotine" and the barber as a "hangman" emphasize the emotional stakes of getting the bob for Bernice. By comparing the haircut to an execution, the author shows how intensely Bernice feels the finality of her decision to bob her hair. This metaphor does more than suggest the severity of the act in Bernice's mind. It also highlights the irreversible nature of the change she thinks she’s about to make. It’s not a temporary decision, as a haircut might usually be thought of. To Bernice, it’s a life-altering event.

The allusions to the guillotine and the hangman at the end of the passage invoke the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. During the time following the creation of the French Republic in the 1790s, France was overtaken by a wave of public executions and massacres of the clergy, the aristocracy, and other “traitors.” This historical reference compounds the sense of dread and foreboding that overtakes Bernice. The narrator directly aligns Bernice’s personal crisis with this period of intense political upheaval and violence. Through this, the allusion underlines the political statement that bobbing one's hair during this time implied. It was a visible marker of rejecting former ideals of feminine beauty, an obvious and irreversible marker of defiance. The haircut is not just a personal choice but a visible declaration of opinion and alignment. The imagery of Bernice being blindfolded and having a white cloth tied around her neck to catch her "blood" (hair) is a further reference to this. To her, the cutting instruments the barber will use might as well be a guillotine, not a razor and scissors.