Answer:
This is the correct sequence of events:
1. While Bernice is in the women's dressing room fixing her hair, Otis Ormonde jokes with Warren and his friends about hitting her on the head with a club when she steps out.
2. On her way to talk to her aunt, Bernice overhears Aunt Josephine and Marjorie's conversation about her in which Marjorie insults and complains about Bernice.
3. During breakfast, Bernice complains to Marjorie about her insults and insensitive behavior. On the verge of tears, she then bluffs about returning home.
4. Marjorie, Warren, and the whole crowd watch as the barber chops off Bernice’s long hair, bobbing it in an ugly fashion.
5. Bernice enviously watches as Marjorie tosses her own blond hair in front of the mirror and begins to twist it into two long braids, looking like a delicate painting of some Saxon princess.
Explanation:
By F. Scott Fitzgerald, the short story "Bernice Bobs Her Hair" is set at a time when bobbed hair for women was still seen as immoral by most of society.
The main character is Bernice, whose antagonist is her own cousin, Marjorie. While Bernice is visiting, Marjorie is forced by her mother to take her cousin with her to the dances and parties she attends. However, while Marjorie is popular among boys and girls, Bernice is seen as boring and spoiled. During one of the dances, Otis Ormonde jokes with Warren and his friends about hitting her on the head with a club when she steps out.
Eventually, Marjorie grows tired of Bernice and complains to her mother about it. Bernice overhears their conversation, feels deeply offended, and the next morning tries to confront Marjorie about it during breakfast. The conflict between them rises until Bernice decides to ask her cousin for help in order to become more popular.
Marjorie does help Bernice but, at the same time, sets a trap for her. She teaches Bernice to go around saying she will get her hair bobbed, which is successful in attracting everyone's attention. However, when Warren begins to like Bernice, Marjorie gets jealous. She corners Bernice in such a way that she (Bernice) ends up agreeing to having her hair cut. They all watch it as her beautiful black hair is bobbed.
Marjorie decides to apologize, insincerely, of course. While doing so, she braids her own long blond hair into beautiful braids as Bernice watches, enviously.
In the end, Bernice cuts Marjorie's braid while her cousin is asleep as revenge for having been deceived.
