Bernice Bobs her Hair

Many authors try to bring history, they write stories about the past that are half truths and half hyperboles. This is because they want to share what it was like at the times that they are speaking of, as well as entertain their reader. This story Bernice Bobs her Hair, by F. Scott Fitzgerald uses a lot figurative language to entertain as well as educate her reader. In her words, she creates characters that over exaggerate some things. Fitzgerald a few different methods to achieve this, her methods ranged from similies, imagery, metaphors, and hyperboles.
One way to show that something is exaggerated is to blow it way out of proportion. Fitzgerald uses her words and actions to do this. She doesn’t just use simple words like “bored,” “easily upset,” “moody,” “anxious,” or “agitated.” But she used “temperamentally restless” to convey the way the “jazz-nourished generation” acted and thought (Fitzgerald 3). Although this is an exaggeration it stresses to the reader how to picture them acting. This also sets the stage for many of the later characters and actions of the characters. Another example of exaggeration that stresses the times as well as the perception the author wanted to create for the characters is “feminine intercourse” (Fitzgerald 4). Feminine intercourse, at first at this time may be initially thought of as something completely wrong. But the meaning that Fitzgerald was going for was female “association”, “connection”, or “contact,” etc. These words could have been used but Fitzgerald decided to exaggerate the meaning and use another word, a word that may have been used frequently at that time, but now entertains as well as educates her reader. There are many more examples of these hyperboles but there were other methods that Fitzgerald used as well.
Fitzgerald also used metaphors to stress her point and message that she wanted to get across to her audience. Metaphors are colorful ways to compare things to one another. This adds more meaning and thought to Fitzgerald’s words. Fitzgerald adds color and imagery by doing so. “Window as a yellow expanse over a very black and wavy ocean,” “the waves of this ocean, so to speak, were the heads of many curious caddies” (Fitzgerald 1). In these metaphors, Fitzgerald creates lot of imagery for the reader and lots of things to think about but still keeping in mind her idea of what it is that is trying to be portrayed. “If you can follow them and yet look graceful you can follow a baby tank across a barb-wire sky-scrapper” (Fitzgerald 10). Metaphors and similes played a key role in this story. Fitzgerald compared many things, characters, and places to something else. “Marjorie Harvery, who besides having a fairylike face” (Fitzgerald 2). These are just some examples of the metaphors and imageries that Fitzgerald creates with her words that help to perceive her message, knowledge, and creativity that she is passing down from the generation that she speaks about.
Fitzgerald creatively uses her words to convey her message and thoughts. She uses words that exaggerate yet keep the meaning that she is trying to get across to her reader. She plays words to work with her character which in turn shapes and mold the characters in the reader’s minds.