The powerful will do anything to maintain power.

Throughout the story, Marjorie is in a position of power over everyone in her life. She can do as she pleases and can treat people however she wants with little consequence. She sees Bernice as a reflection of her social status, and so, if Bernice is unpopular, it can only mean that her status will cloud Marjorie’s. Marjorie is willing to provide guidance for Bernice to increase her status in their social circle, but only because it will make Marjorie look better and therefore allow Marjorie to retain her position of power. If Bernice can pull her own weight socially, she will create less of a blemish on Marjorie’s social shine. But her guidance to Bernice is to act more like herself, setting up Bernice to be a reflection of Marjorie’s status. There is, then, a ceiling on Bernice’s social standing, and when she threatens to push through that ceiling, Marjorie is immediately ready to sabotage her. In the case of Warren, it is less that Marjorie wants to be in any kind of relationship with Warren than that she doesn’t want Bernice to attain something slated specifically for herself. So when that seems like a possibility, Marjorie is willing and able to reassert her power in the social scene to diminish Bernice back to where Marjorie believes she should be: in need of Marjorie’s assistance, with Marjorie forever in possession of the upper hand. 

Cultural norms are a performance.

Marjorie understands that how she lives is a performance. She performs the role of a popular girl, interested in parties and conversation, because that is the requirement to maintain the status she commands. She is willing to play the role because it allows her to get what she wants, which is a measure of power and control over her life. If Bernice, who is unfamiliar with the requirements of such a role, is to continue to accompany Marjorie in her social scene, she will need advice. By suggesting methods of improvement around her eyebrows, her clothing choices, conversations, and ultimately, even her hair, Marjorie teaches Bernice how to perform popularity and femininity the same way that Marjorie does. 

As Bernice takes Marjorie’s lessons to heart, she sees that the performance works. She no longer suffers the poor conversations and bored dance partners her authentic self produced. Instead, she fakes her way through conversations that she knows are vapid and silly, but in doing so, she entertains those in her new social circle and attracts the attention of desirable and eligible young men who were previously inaccessible. By embracing the performance of cultural norms, Bernice succeeds in Marjorie’s world. However, her experience with the cultural norms of Marjorie’s world is limited, and therefore her success in this performance is short-lived.

Desperate people often make rash decisions.

When the story begins, Bernice is out of her depth. She does her best to be part of a social scene that is fundamentally different than her own. She doesn’t enjoy herself, and neither does anyone else who interacts with her. Bernice seems to understand her misfitness, but she is incapable of changing her disposition on her own. When she overhears Marjorie’s critiques of her, Bernice is mortified and has the impulse to leave entirely. But she presumably must enjoy some aspects of Marjorie’s scene because she is willing to act against her own impulse and allow Marjorie to make her over. She is also fundamentally desperate to change her circumstances and enjoy some of the benefits of living Marjorie’s lifestyle. 

Bernice listens to Marjorie’s ideas and puts them into action without fully considering what the outcomes might be. She wants to be included in the social scene enough that she is happy to embrace Marjorie’s attitudes about conversation and personal style, but it seems as though she doesn’t believe that she will have to follow through on cutting her hair. She believes that she’ll be able to bluff her way through the last couple of weeks of her visit, but when Marjorie embarrasses her, she feels the need to prove that she is not bluffing. By impulsively cutting her hair to prove Marjorie wrong, Bernice falls into Marjorie’s trap. Though she has scored a nominal victory over Marjorie, Bernice’s rash decision results in a bad haircut that topples her newfound social status.