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...