Similarities Between Babylon Revisited And The Great Gatsby

The most amazing thing to be said about “Babylon Revisited” is that while it is completely a work of fiction it is so close to being autobiographical that it walks the line between what is real and what is fantasy. Fitzgerald had a unique way of writing about himself without giving himself away by name or place, he discussed the happenings of his life, his joys and his regrets by examining the feelings those event invoke and not the events themselves, for Fitzgerald it’s all about the aftermath. While his most famous work The Great Gatsby focuses on the roaring twenties and the party culture of the time, filled with characters that could be said to be a direct analog to Fitzgerald himself. Meanwhile “Babylon Revisited” is what comes after the

Charlie was one of many who got rich quick during the stock boom of the 1920’s, and like the rest of them he gave into a life of partying and general excess, as Charlie himself describes the way fast money affected him and others, “We were a sort of royalty, almost infallible, with a sort of magic about us,” (983). However, his decline was swift, as like many others when the stock market crashed those same “minute millionaires” lost everything. Deeply affected by alcoholism, Charlie and his wife have a falling out which leads her left out in the cold, eventually falling ill and passing away, by his late wife’s wishes her sister takes custody of their daughter. Fitzgerald likewise was one of those who benefitted from the boom, he moved to Paris during the period with his wife and daughter much like Charlie, and much like Charlie the stress of the collapse caused him serious issues with alcoholism. The wife’s physical decline could be compared to the mental decline of Fitzgerald’s wife Zelda, who was hospitalized for many years following the crash. In this the semi-nonfictitious nature of the story stands out, different names and some minor discrepancies, but ultimately the relation is in the shared experiences and feelings of these two men, Charlie is an equally flawed reflection of his

While Charlie is attempting to piece his life back together and move past the mistakes he made, these two are doing the exact opposite. Much like the titular character of The Great Gatsby Lorraine and Duncan are trying to grab hold of the past and make it real again, they haven’t tired of moral irresponsibility unlike Charlie. Still, we can see how they are doomed to fail, Charlie notes that Lorraine was once young and beautiful, and very rich but now he can see the marks of age lining her face, and her allowance given to her by her husband to vacation in France is hardly enough for the decadence she truly craves to return to. Even though these characters are not repentant like Charlie they too have had to face the consequences of their faults, age has claimed from them what they took for granted all those years, their youth. They also serve as a reminder for Charlie that he cannot escape his past, for the past (much like Lorraine) is very hard to