Big Blonde (Style)

Style

Setting

“Big Blonde” is set in New York City during the 1920s. The story reflects certain conflicts in this moment in cultural history, particularly those concerning sex roles and sexual mores. The 1920s were an era of growing legal rights for women and loosening strictures against sexuality. The story examines, however, how these changes may not benefit a woman who thinks of her identity and her self-worth in terms of fulfilling men’s desires. Relaxed social strictures against divorce, drinking, socializing, and sex lead to Mrs. Morse’s entrapment and despair rather than her liberation. The story does not include very much concrete or detailed description of physical settings, contributing to an atmosphere of haziness, malaise, and passivity that stands in contrast to the idea of 1920s New York as vital and stimulating. Though the world in which she lives is the dynamic one of the “roaring twenties,” composed of poker games and nights out on the town, Mrs. Morse remains inert.

Narration

The story is told through omniscient third person narration. This means that a narrator who is not a character in the story describes Mrs. Morse’s life, and that this narrator has access to her inner thoughts and feelings. This form of narration is critical to the story, since how Mrs. Morse appears to those around her is so very different from how the omniscient narrator shows her to be internally. Through this gap or difference, the third person omniscient narration creates the effect of alienation, which is a crucial part of Mrs. Morse’s characterization.

While a view of Mrs. Morse’s inner thoughts helps to create empathy for the character, the narration also allows for some distance from her through the use of irony. Irony is created through the difference between what readers know and what characters know. In this case, the narration reveals Mrs. Morse’s associates to lack insight about her troubles and despair, while readers see them clearly. But the narration also allows readers more knowledge about Mrs. Morse’s predicament than she has herself. The narrator characterizes Mrs. Morse as limited and blind: “She never pondered if she might not be better occupied doing something else. Her ideas, or better, her acceptances, ran right along with those of the other substantially built blondes in whom she had found her friends.” While she is completely absorbed in her role, and sees it as inevitable that she live out the fate of a “big blonde,” the narration allows readers to see Mrs. Morse as a socially constructed type who is entrapped in the way of thinking that defines her. Thus the reader sympathizes with Mrs. Morse, but pities her more than identifying with her.

Symbolism

Several subtle kinds of symbolism are at work in “Big Blonde.” Naming is one form of symbolism. Hazel Morse is entrapped in social codes of gender and sexuality, and her last name, Morse, suggests codes. It is significant that she gets her name from her husband, because it is men in the story who enforce the codes that define what a “big blonde” is. Her maiden name is never mentioned, and she is referred to throughout as Mrs. Morse, despite the fact that her marriage is brief. Mrs. Morse’s first name, Hazel, is also symbolic: her actions, impressions, and memories are all “hazy.” Alcohol makes her life bearable and also imposes a kind of blurring associated with her given name. The two parts of her name suggest a divide in Hazel Morse between roles and codes, which are definite, and experiences and feelings, which are hazy.

The use of slang and colloquial language also creates a form of symbolism. Several slang terms and phrases are repeated throughout the story. Mrs. Morse tries continually to be a “good sport”; she is caught up in a game, with certain rules of behavior. Much of her despair is brought on by the unspoken rules of this game. The term “good sport,” used casually in Mrs. Morse’s milieu, has several implications, including loose morality, sexual permissiveness, and compliance to the wishes of others. Whenever she doesn’t fulfill her role of cheerful feminine passivity, she is afraid of being a bad sport. The fact that the term is casual and playful suggests just how subtle Mrs. Morse’s entrapment is. More poignant still is the repetition of the toast, “Here’s mud in your eye.” The toast is ironic on several levels. A toast by nature implies celebration and good cheer, while wishing mud in one’s eye is, on a literal level, suggestive of humiliation and blindness. Mrs. Morse makes this toast three times, each in a situation of despair covered over with the facade of good cheer.