Analysis: Babylon Revisited Considered by many, F. Scott Fitzgerald has accomplished to write a short story that can be related to one’s everyday struggles. “Babylon Revisited” contains life lessons that open the reader 's eyes to inform them of what the future holds due to everyday decisions. Throughout the story Fitzgerald gives the reader numerous doubts about the main character, Charlie. Due to the story being told through Charlie’s point of view most want him to have his daughter, Honoria. Charlie returns to Paris with the knowledge of getting his daughter back from his sister-in-law, Marion, but with his past in the way of things it makes it rather impossible for Charlie to truly prove himself that he has actually changed for the better. …show more content…
Although he actively tries to avoid reminders of the Paris he used to know, they nevertheless follow him everywhere. For an example When he goes to lunch with Honoria they go to the Le Grand Vatel because it was “the only restaurant he could think of not reminiscent of champagne dinners and long luncheons that began at two and ended in a blurred and vague twilight”(Fitzgerald pg#). When he walks through Montmartre, his old self haunts him. Even the things that have changed remind him of his past, simply because the newness of them strikes him to remember how things used to …show more content…
While these incidents suggest that the past still haunts Charlie, we can’t help but think that Charlie is always looking for ways to remember his past. He must know, consciously or subconsciously, that visiting the scenes of his former life will fill him with regret and possibly even longing. Readers know that some part of him must want the wickedness of the old days back in his life. But for Charlie to move on in life he has to except what has been done. Instead of ignoring the fact that he was a drunk, he must acknowledge that drinking was once a part of his life and he has to live with it. The fact that Fitzgerald ended the story with Charlie back in the Ritz bar after the fact that Marion denies Charlie Honoria, postponing the decision for six months. It draws the reader to think that he is going to give up and begin drinking again. Especially when the bartender Alix wanted to offer him another drink, “His whisky glass was empty, but he shook his head when Alix looked at it questioningly” (pg#). After that one decision of denying the second drink it makes the reader fully believe that Charlie is actually changing for
F Scott Fitzgerald once wrote that “[m]ostly, we authors must repeat ourselves—that's the truth. We have two or three great moving experiences in our lives—experiences so great and moving that it doesn't seem at the time that anyone else has been so caught up and pounded and dazzled and astonished and beaten and broken and rescued and illuminated and rewarded and humbled in just that way ever before” (Fitzgerald, “One”). The idea that one experience so deeply affects an author that he or she will retell the story in different ways is seen in F Scott Fitzgerald book The Great Gatsby and the short story “Babylon Revisited”. The parallel between the two pieces of literature is clearly shown through many aspects. F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great
Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald uses many scenes to display imagery. “I spent my Saturday nights in New York because those gleaming, dazzling parties of his were with me so vividly that I could still hear the music and the laughter faint and incessant from his garden and the cars going up and down his drive.” This quote displays how the narrator is still visualizing these images when he is not present at his house. The words “gleaming” and “dazzling” portray the parties as bright and remarkable. From the extract, the reader learns that the narrator is avoiding his neighbor’s house. “… when I left—the grass on his lawn had grown as long as mine.”
We can all sympathize with Charlie on the surface, we have all made mistakes that we have to live with. Charlie is attempting to move forward with his life and erase the mistakes of his past. The ghosts of his past torment him repeatedly throughout the story, his child's guardians despise him and his old friends do not understand him.
In the book Alas, Babylon, the author, Pat Frank, discusses the condition of the human race. Mainly, his view differs from others because rather than write about the countries in a nuclear war, he writes about people living in the countries that are involved in that war. His discusses these peoples’ progress, both technological and moral, as well as their use of power. These topics make the book as intriguing as it is to read.
The final paragraph in the story shows how much Charlie loved his daughter, and how much he needs her to complete his life. In "Babylon Revisited" Charlie was treated unfairly and should have won the custody of Honoria. Charlie’s regret of how he lived in the past is proved repeatedly throughout the story and even with the hardship of losing his wife and daughter, Charlie was still able to put his life back together. The mistakes he made in the past were not all his fault; there was a problem in the stock market that put a heavy burden on his shoulders. He has done more than enough to show Marion that he has changed and is capable of taking care of Honoria. However, the story may also be a bit biased considering that the narrator may not be a reliable person. There are also certain situations in the story, which questions Charlie’s sincerity about how much he has changed.
“You can’t repeat the past?... Why of course you can.” (110 This enduring quote from the famous novel The Great Gatsby by none other than F. Scott Fitzgerald stirs the mind and imagination in wonder of the very character who had uttered these words. Infamous Gatsby is the mysterious man behind the lavish and enthralling parties; a man who made his money and his image in that of a king. But, who is this mysterious man? How did he receive the great fortune of developing all of which he had possessed? He had it all, but we are on the outside looking in; did this man with everything really have nothing at all? If Jay Gatsby is the real person we see him to be, then James Gatz is nonexistent. The day that the world had gained Gatsby, it had also lost James Gatz. There is a mysterious motive behind every move Jay Gatsby makes; these meticulously planned out moves will ultimately lead to an unfortunate and untimely demise.
For Charlie, Ignorance is bliss. He realizes that his so called ? friends? were just using him to entertain their perverse humor. Also, he was also fired from the job that he loved so much because his new intelligence made those around him feel inferior and scared.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. “Babylon Revisited”. Short Fiction: Classic and Contemporary. 6th ed. Ed. Charles Bohner and Lyman Grant. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006.
Fitzgerald never relates the history of Charlie's circumstances out right. It is inferred through his present situation and through his interaction with those around him. The reader enters the story seemingly in the middle of a conversation between Charlie and a Parisian bartender. From his thoughts and conversation one is able to infer that he is returning to Paris after a long period of absence. He states, "He was not really disappointed to find Paris was so empty. But the stillness in the Ritz bar was strange and portentous. It was not an American bar anymore he felt polite in it, and not as if he owned it." We then see that he is returning to a Paris very different from the one he had known. We also see that he himself has changed. He is no longer the same hedonistic individual that he apparently once was even refusing a second drink when it was offered.
In, “The Great Gatsby,” we learn about many different themes and ideas that are presented to us in the book. The themes and ideas are presented to us through the results of the choices and actions that the characters make in the story, ranging from Tom’s adultery to Gatsby’s nostalgia. One theme Fitzgerald teaches to his readers, is that nostalgia (an extreme longing for the past) can cause many problems in a person’s life, through the use of several literary elements that are found within the story.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. "Babylon Revisited." In The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Volume II. Edited by Paul Lauter et al. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1991: 1471-1485.
Charlie struggles with apparent mental illness throughout his letters, but he never explicitly addresses this problem. His friends make him realize that he is different and it is okay to be different from everyone else. This change in perspective gives Charlie new opportunities to experience life from a side he was unfamiliar with. Without these new friends, Charlie would have never dared to try on the things he has. His friends have helped him develop from an antisocial wallflower to an adventurous young man who is both brave and loyal. Transitioning shapes how the individual enters into the workforce, live independently and gain some control over their future
He was stuck in the past like Willy, still trying to gain back the love they had once shared. "Can 't repeat the past?" he cried incredulously. "Why of course you can" (Fitzgerald 116).
Themes of hope, success, and wealth overpower The Great Gatsby, leaving the reader with a new way to look at the roaring twenties, showing that not everything was good in this era. F. Scott Fitzgerald creates the characters in this book to live and recreate past memories and relationships. This was evident with Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship, Tom and Daisy’s struggling marriage, and Gatsby expecting so much of Daisy and wanting her to be the person she once was. The theme of this novel is to acknowledge the past, but do not recreate and live in the past because then you will not be living in the present, taking advantage of new opportunities.
Fitzgerald portrays Gatsby as an individual who will continuously struggle to attain their dream, but rather he is like “boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”(189) Gatsby destroys his old identity, forgetting his past to become a new and improved person, someone capable of achieving...