Babylon Revisited

Factual Information

"Babylon Revisited" is a short story written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This story first appeared in The Saturday Evening Post on February 21, 1931.

Characters

Charlie Wales

Charlie Wales is a man who has come to Paris from Prague to regain custody of his daughter, Honoria, from his sister-in-law.

Honoria Wales

Honoria is the daughter of Charlie Wales and his deceased wife, Helen.

Marion Peters

Marion is the sister-in-law to Charlie Wales and sister to the deceased, Helen. She also has custody of Honoria Wales.

Lincoln Peters

Lincoln is married to Marion Wales and shares custody of Honoria.

Lorraine Quarrles

Lorraine is a friend of Charlie's from his past.

Duncan Shaeffer

Duncan is a friend of Charlie's from college.

Plot

"Babylon Revisited" is a story about a man, Charlie Wales, who is tries to correct his past and regain custody of his daughter. He has to overcome his drinking and try to regain his wealth. He returns to Paris from Prague to try and convince his sister-in-law, who has custody of his daughter, that he has changed so that she will sign over custody to him. Charlie has to still overcome obstacles in his present while trying to prove that he has changed.

Themes

One theme of this story is Charlie's struggle to prove to everyone that he has changed from the person they knew that stayed out drinking and partying. There are still some passages in the story that can make the reader wonder if he has really changed.

Comparisons To The Author's Life

It is easy to see parallels between a piece of literature and the life of it’s author. This is made evident with F. Scott Fitzgerald and his essay “Babylon Revisited”. The essay is a story of money and family lost to alcoholism and the remnants of life left behind. As compelling a story as this is on it’s own, it becomes even more interesting with the knowledge that Fitzgerald experienced much of the same.

In “Babylon Revisited” Fitzgerald writes of a man who falls into a great deal of money, then spends without caution while in France with his wife. He becomes an alcoholic, the money is quickly lost, his wife dies, and custody of their young daughter goes to his late wife’s sister. All of this is given almost as an after thought, as the story picks up as the protagonist, Charlie Wales, comes back to America to reclaim custody of his daughter. It is not an easy task, as his sister-in-law, Marion, blames Charlie for the death of his wife. The overall theme of the story is living to regret misusing an extravagant lifestyle. By all indications, this is also the overall theme to Fitzgerald’s life.

In 1920 Fitzgerald married Zelda Sayre and they began a lifestyle of decadence. While he tried to gain credibility in the literary world, he was seen as too much the party boy. The couple had their first and only child, affectionately known as Scottie, in 1921. His drinking quickly escalated to the point of alcoholism. His wife also drank, but was not seen as an alcoholic. The couple fought quite often, being in a hostile state that was brought on by drinking. During their years together the couple spent their money too extravagantly, putting them in debt. The family went to France in early 1924, where he wrote The Great Gatsby. While there Zelda’s partying ways went too far: she had an affair. Though they stayed together, the marriage was irreparably damaged. She later suffered mental breakdowns and ended up spending her life in and out of asylums. Fitzgerald eventually moved out of his family’s home and rented a house for himself. He was not providing a good enough environment for his 14 year old daughter so she was sent to a boarding school. Another family, the Obers, took over caring for her. Fitzgerald kept up writing to her and kept a hand over her education. Fitzgerald died in a girlfriend’s apartment in 1940. Zelda died in a fire at a sanitarium in 1948.

The parallels are quite obvious between the protagonist’s life and that of the author -- spending beyond his means, drinking to excess, and losing his child to another family. Though Fitzgerald’s wife died years after his own death, it could be argued that the parallel between his life and the death of Charlie Wales’s wife comes when Zelda had her affair. While the guilt he may have felt over his wife straying is not known, it is known that after that affair the marriage had essentially ended. It suffered a metaphoric death.

In reading through the life of Charlie Wales, strong parallels are shown to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life. The high times Charlie experiences are those of Fitzgerald’s. The losses of Charlie are Fitzgerald’s. And it is safe to assume that the guilt and crushing pain Charlie wrestles with throughout the essay is that of a broken man wishing to share his story with sympathizers in a weary world.

Works Cited

Sipiora, Phillip. "Babylon Revisited." Reading and Writing about Literature. New Jersey: Upper Saddle River, 2002.

Bruccoli, Matthew J. “A Brief Life of Fitzgerald” F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Life in Letters Ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli. New York: Scribners, 1994. University of South Carolina F. Scott Fitzgerald Centenary. 4 Dec. 2003 <http://www.sc.edu/fitzgerald/biography.html>