Babylon Revisited

In the short story Babylon Revisited, F. Scott Fitzgerald reveals Charlie Wales’ struggles to regain his pride alongside dealing with internal conflicts after coming to terms with his alcoholism and the death of his wife. When Charlie begins to put his life back together he is in constant remembrance of all the negative things he did in his past. Fitzgerald characterizes Charlie through diction, imagery and syntax to convey his impact of the overall theme of the past cannot be escaped through constant struggle.

Fitzgerald uses impassioned diction to exhibit Charlie’s true character. During Charlie’s walk home, he is recalling all the good times along with the bad times of his past. While referring to his memories he feels “exultant” and nevertheless satisfied. (Fitzgerald 6). Fitzgerald uses this word to embrace Charlie’s hope for the future and trying to make amends with his past. Such diction shows Charlie’s optimistic personality and character. While facing arguments with his wife, Charlie makes mistakes of those he still suffers from. He refers to their relationship as “’reconciled’” before her death (Fitzgerald 6). He uses this term to satisfy his conscience in belief he justified their relationship. The author uses these choices of words to evaluate Charlie’s optimistic character in hope of learning from is mistakes and improve with his relationship with his daughter.

Fitzgerald uses commemorated imagery to portray Charlie’s regretful character throughout the story. Charlie has constant flash backs of the faults he has made with his wife before she passed away. Charlie is haunted with the “image of Helen” in his dreams and all the things he did wrong to her when they were together (Fitzgerald 6). Fitzgerald uses the imag...

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...ing on Marlon’s door, he recognizes it is the “ghost out of the past” coming to remind him of all the troubles he made throughout his life. He comes to conclusion no matter how far he has come, his past will always come back to haunt him. Charlie cannot cope with the guilt he holds inside from his past the “memory of those days swept over him like a nightmare” and his inability to expiate it terrorizes him. Charlie refers to his past as a nightmare because he is sorrowful of his actions and his battle with alcohol. Charlie is torn by his own guilt-ridden conscience which cause him to “blame the errors of his past for the pains of his present” powerless of escaping the past with persistent reminders of his regrettable actions (Toor 1). He continues to hold anguish of his past that inadvertently leads to his present to become suffocated with the agony he holds.