Inventing the Self: Illusion, Identity, and Authority in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Absolution” and “Bernice Bobs Her Hair.”

Abstract

This article examines F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short fiction as a site of modern identity formation under conditions of weakened authority. Through close readings of “Absolution” and “Bernice Bobs Her Hair,” it argues that the self in Fitzgerald emerges as a constructed formation shaped by illusion, performance, and desire. Rather than restoring coherence, these mechanisms reorganize subjectivity around projection and social enactment, producing forms of agency that remain unstable and contingent.Drawing on theoretical frameworks from sociology, psychoanalysis, and modernity studies, the essay situates Fitzgerald’s narratives within broader debates on the transformation of identity in modern culture. In “Absolution,” imaginative projection generates a compensatory inward structure that intensifies division and isolation, while in “Bernice Bobs Her Hair,” identity is constituted through performance within a social field governed by visibility and recognition. In both cases, the self depends on processes that cannot fully secure it, requiring continuous maintenance under shifting conditions.By placing Fitzgerald’s short fiction at the intersection of narrative form and social theory, this article contributes to ongoing discussions of modernist subjectivity, demonstrating how literary texts register and produce the tensions between agency, instability, and the absence of stable grounds for identity.