SOURCE: Beegel, Susan F. “‘Bernice Bobs Her Hair’: Fitzgerald's Jazz Elegy for Little Women.” In New Essays on F. Scott Fitzgerald's Neglected Stories, edited by Jackson R. Bryer, pp. 58-73. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1996.

In the following essay, Beegel contends that Fitzgerald borrows the key plot elements and thematic concerns for his story “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women.

In 1915 nineteen-year-old F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote a remarkable letter to his younger sister Annabel, criticizing her social deportment and arguing that a successful debutante's popularity is composed of a concerted appeal to male egotism (“Boys like to talk about themselves … always pay close attention to the man.”) and accomplished acting (“Your natural laugh is good, but your artificial one is bum.”) Abandoning the traditional role of elder brother as protector of innocence, he both instructs Annabel in the rudiments of sex appeal and endeavors...