F. Scott Fitzgerald "Babylon Revisited" 1931

F. Scott Fitzgerald "Babylon Revisited" 1931

1. Concept of Time

   • Form
     • Short story
       • Does not allow for full development - means that reader is active in filling in details
         • immediacy of dialogue creates an instantly personal tone & connection with reader
     • Structure is created through chapters
       • Suggestion of conventional story
   • Time is constantly referred to
     • huge difference between past and present
       • Lorraine & Duncan
     • Charlie is becoming aware that he is running out of time - his daughter is growing up & losing innocence
       • Nevertheless, time is still stagnated and Charlie attempts to postpone reality
         • "he would send her lots of things tomorrow"
           • "they couldn't make him pay forever"

2. Loss of childhood innocence

   • "She was already an individual with a code of her own, and charlie was more and more absorbed by the desire of putting a little of himself into her
     • before she crystallized utterly"
   • "Well you brought me this doll...And I've got lots of things. and we're not rich any more."
   • Represents the distortion of time & the consequences of his actions are highlighted
   • links to post-war (WW!&WW2) images of child deaths & combat
     • Children loosing innocence too soon

3. Depiction of America

   • Past
     • • representative of Charlie's past
         • past is still hindering him from fully being able to grasp the present/future (Honoria)
           • "Sudden ghosts out of the past"
             • Haunting & unwelcome
           • "Again the memory of those days swept over him like a nightmare...The men who locked their wives out in the snow, because the snow of twenty-nine
             • wasn't real snow/ If you didn't want it to be snow, you just paid some money."
               • distortion of reality
             • financial gain was in parallel with emotional loss
             • refers to "twenty-nine" - beginning of the depression
               • very different view to most depression era texts
       • letter is signed: "Always devotedly, Lorraine"
         • past will "always" be an obstacle for Charlie
   • Future
     • Honoria
       • Children as the future - need for the next generation

4. Compatible contrast with My Antonia for exam question

   • My Antonia is a relatively long novel which slowly introduces characters & settings
   • My Antonia view the past as a happier, more innocent time
     • Charlie is constantly haunted by his past.
   • Both assert personal tones
     • Jim Burden's memoirs in "My Antonia"
     • Omniscient narrator in "Babylon Revisited" but becomes very personal through heavy dialogue content