The roaring twenties provided the United States with incredible wealth in all facets of society. During this time, American literature became enriched with Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald’s short stories and novels. Fitzgerald grew up with ambitions to be a successful and famous man. He failed at achieving success as a football player at Princeton during his freshman year and was an armistice away from achieving hero status in World War I. His success came through an art he mastered as a young child, writing. He excelled in writing and drew inspiration for his work from his own life. During the latter part of his career, Fitzgerald wrote a short story titled “Babylon Revisited,” in which Charles Wales reflects on his past success but wishes to make amends with the past and rekindle his relationship with his daughter. Fitzgerald used his own experiences in his stories and molded them almost according to his biography. The experiences that Fitzgerald used from his own life to write “Babylon Revisited” were his wife Zelda’s difficult life, his personal life struggles, and his relationship with his daughter.
The condition of Fitzgerald’s wife mirrors the death of Charlie’s wife in the story. During the story, Charlie’s wife is dead. Scott Donaldson describes Zelda as “a victim of the reckless and expensive life they led during the boom years” (8). Similar to Charlie, Fitzgerald lived a reckless lifestyle along with his wife Zelda. Fitzgerald and Zelda drank and partied uncontrollably so much during the twenties that they even cheated death by standing and riding on top of a taxi through New York City. Although both couples led reckless lives, Fitzgerald and Charlie love their wives dearly. Fitzgerald writes in “Babylon Revisited,” “He...
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.... Similar to Charlie, Fitzgerald regrets his past mistakes including his wife’s condition. Charlie’s daughter, who was taken away from him, is another autobiographical aspect that Fitzgerald incorporates. The struggles and successes that Fitzgerald encountered throughout his life, his short stories, his novels, and his legend helped epitomize him as one of the greatest autobiographiucal writers of his time, still recognized in the literature world nearly nine decades later.
Works Cited
Donaldson, Scott. “American Novelists. F. Scott Fitzgerald.” Dictionary of Literary Biography 9 (1981); 3-18. Web.
Fitzgerald, Francis Scott Key. “Babylon Revisited.” Jeff Lindemann’s LearningWeb. Houston Community College, n.d. Web. 29 July, 2011.
Prigozy, Ruth. “American Short-Story Writers. F. Scott Fitzgerald.” Dictionary of Literary Biography 86 (1989); 22-123. Web.
Fitzgerald may have based some of Daisy’s characteristics on his own wife. Although she was truly in love with Scott, she refused to commit herself to him because his economic prospects were not promising. Not only this, but Zelda Fitzgerald became infatuated with a young French pilot, which angered Scott and influenced the theme of infidelity in the Great
In the reading of “Babylon Revisited” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is the tale of the return of an American expatriate to Paris. The protagonist is named Charlie Wales. We find him in the Ritz bar chatting to the barman about the whereabouts of his past drinking buddies. He also describes Paris as being mostly desolate compared to many years earlier. Charlie describes himself as being soberer for more than a year and he now lives in Prague. He then leaves in a taxi and moves about aimlessly through Paris. Later in time, Charlie goes to his brother-in-law’s house where is five year old daughter Honoria jumps in his arms. As the story progresses, we realize that Charlie Wales returned to Paris to regain custody of his daughter, who presently lives with his sister in law. His sister in law hates him and his blamed for the death of his wife Helen. Helen died few years ago meanwhile Charlie was in a mental institution. Eventually, Charlie wins her trust and makes urgent plans to leave with Honoria. This happiness is short lived after two former party friends of Charlie, show up at the home of his sister in law asking him to come and drink with them. Charlie’s affiliation with this group, causes her to change her mind about letting him take is daughter back. Lastly, he returns to the bar hoping that, in few months he would get another chance to get Honoria. Charlie is determined not to drink and party with his friends, but we are not sure if his improved from the old days. He also shows a bit of nostalgia from his old days. Charlie has many flaws, but at the same time also charismatic and persuasive speaker. Charlie is not a victim, but sympathetic yes.
Franklin Scott Fitzgerald's life as a writer in the 1920's shaped the stories that he created. Much of the content of many of his tales correlates with his private life with his wife Zelda, his trouble with alcohol, and their lives in Europe. Fitzgerald wrote the story "Babylon Revisited" - perhaps his most widely read story - in December of 1930, and then it was published in February of 1931 in The Saturday Evening Post. Mathew J. Bruccoli writes in "A Brief Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald" that "The dominant influences on F. Scott Fitzgerald were aspiration...Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, and alcohol," and each of these influences are painfully visible in "Babylon Revisited." Charlie Wales, the main character in "Babylon Revisited," is obviously an image of Fitzgerald and the life that he lived in the roaring twenties, but the sympathy that Fitzgerald's writing seems to presume is as shallow as Charlie's giving up alcohol. The bond between Fitzgerald and Charlie Wales, however, is not as shallow as the contempt that Fitzgerald holds for the life that both he and Charlie experienced: both Charlie and Fitzgerald experience financial success, suffering marriages, and alcoholism.
Francis Scott Fitzgerald, also known under his writer’s name, F. Scott Fitzgerald, is revered as a famous American novelist for his writing masterpieces in the 1920’s and 1930’s. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about his extravagant lifestyle in America that his wife, Zelda, their friends, and him lived during that era. In fact, a lot of his novels and essays were based off of real-life situations with exaggerated plots and twists. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novels were the readers looking glass into his tragic life that resulted in sad endings in his books, and ultimately his own life. F. Scott Fitzgerald lived in a nice neighborhood, but growing up, he wasn’t privileged.
In "Babylon Revisited," Fitzgerald uses these troubled times as a background for his story. The main character is someone many Americans of the day could sympathize with. His rise from mediocrity to a life of wealth and leisure and then his tragic fall appealed to the broken and world-weary masses subjugated by the demoralizing affects of the depression.
Certain authors, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, wanted to reflect the horrors that the world had experienced not a decade ago. In 1914, one of the most destructive and pointless wars in history plagued the world: World War I. This war destroyed a whole generation of young men, something one would refer to as the “Lost Generation”. Modernism was a time that allowed the barbarity of the war to simmer down and eventually, disappear altogether. One such author that thrived in this period was F. Scott Fitzgerald, a young poet and author who considered himself the best of his time. One could say that this self-absorption was what fueled his drive to be the most famous modernist the world had seen. As The New Yorker staff writer Susan Orlean mentions in her literary summary of Fitzgerald’s works, “I didn’t know till fifteen that there was anyone in the world except me, and it cost me plenty” (Orlean xi). One of the key factors that influenced and shaped Fitzgerald’s writing was World War I, with one of his most famous novels, This Side Of Paradise, being published directly after the war in 1920. Yet his most famous writing was the book, The Great Gatsby, a novel about striving to achieve the American dream, except finding out when succeeding that this dream was not a desire at all. Fitzgerald himself lived a life full of partying and traveling the world. According to the Norton Anthology of American Literature, “In the 1920’s and 1930’s F. Scott Fitzgerald was equally equally famous as a writer and as a celebrity author whose lifestyle seemed to symbolize the two decades; in the 1920’s he stood for all-night partying, drinking, and the pursuit of pleasure while in the 1930’s he stood for the gloomy aftermath of excess” (Baym 2124). A fur...
Damn. I wish I was in one of the bigger classes. At least in there there’s a lower probability of me being called on.
24 Feb. 2014. http:// Ellen.Gerald.Baylon.com/fsf/BABYLON-REVISITED.html>. A Brief Life of Fitzgerald. A Brief Life of Fitzgerald. N.p., n.d. Web.
Scott Fitzgerald. In his story titled Babylon Revisited, Fitzgerald epitomizes the genre. The story focuses on Charlie Wales, who is visiting Paris after a year and a half away. During Charlie’s time away, the stock market crash hit America, sending a shockwave through the economies of the world. Charlie’s old life in Paris was one of almost limitless money fueling a decadent lifestyle of alcohol, parties and promiscuity.
On Wednesday February 12 of 1890 F. Scott Fitzgerald's parents were married in Washington D.C. Six years later on September 24, 1896 Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born at his home 481 Laurel Ave. in St. Paul, Minnesota. His two infant older sisters had died from a violent influenza so that by the time Fitzgerald came along Mollie Fitzgerald had become the proverbial nightmare that known as an overprotective mother. Fitzgerald's mother was no traditional mother though, for she was known for her eccentricities. These eccentricities disturbed young Scott's life, "Fitzgerald later described his mother as 'half insane with pathological nervous worry'" (Bruccoli 15), but nothing worried anyone in the family so much as his father's failure to hold down a job. It was because his father lost his job as a wicker furniture manufacturer and salesman the family was forced to move from St. Paul to Buffalo in April of 1898, where his father began work for Proctor and Gamble. In January of 1901 the family moved from Buffalo to Syracuse where Edward had been transferred by his employer and where, on Sunday July 21, 1901 Scott's younger sister Annabel was born. Just two years later the family was back in Buffalo and just five years after that the family had returned to St. Paul and Grandma McQuillan's money.
F. Scott Fitzgerald is mostly known for his writing which are mostly autobiographical. F. Scott Fitzgerald is famous, not only for his writing, but also for his life. F. Scott Fitzgerald was a master of novels, short stories, and as an essay writer. F. Scott Fitzgerald is tremendously known all over the world as a writer of the Jazz Age of the 1920s and the Great Depression of the 1930s. F. Scott Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896. He was an only child of an aristocratic father and a working-class mother. Fitzgerald enrolled in St. Paul Academy when he was a little boy. The first story ever written by F. Scott Fitzgerald was called The Mystery of the Raymond Mortgage It was a detective story published in his school’s newspaper. After being in St. Paul Academy, he studied at a school called Newman School in New Jersey.
Fitzgerald’s personal life was just as intriguing as his writing. He was born on September 24, 1896 in St. Paul Minnesota as the son of Edward Fitzgerald and Mary Mcquillan. His mother was occupied as a wholesale grocer in St. Paul while his father was an old Southerner (Bruccoli). The family relocated to New York after his father failed as a manufacturer of wicker. His father took the job as a salesman for Procter and Gamble, but not soon after, Edward was dismissed and once again, the family found themselves back in St. Paul. In the Fall of 1913. Fitzgerald enrolled at Princeton where he dove deep into the literary life. He made contributions to the Princeton Triangle Club, the Princeton Tiger, and the Nassau Literary Magazine, as well as forming relationships with students who pursued a similar dream of being a writer...
Fitzgerald’s life is quite proportional to the story he creates. He shows the obstacles in his life that deal with love affairs, while trying to climb the social ladder to enhance his image. The overall moral in this story shows that materialistic possessions can not buy someone’s love in a deep and affectionate way. After all, Daisy is just a dainty, exquisite flower, lacking depth of human character, and is a trophy for Gatsby and Tom’s conquest.
In the years of the 1930s and the Great Depression, Fitzgerald saw his own physical and emotional world collapse with the decline of his literary reputation and the failure of his marriage. Fitzgerald’s last years as a writer "were truly lost . . . writing Hollywood screenplays and struggling to finish his novel The Last Tycoon" (Charters 489). Fitzgerald wrote approximately 160 stories during his career (Charters 489). "Babylon Revisited," written in 1931, is one of his later works. It is considered "more complicated emotionally" than his earlier works because he shows "less regret for the past and more dignity in the face of real sorrow" (Charters 489).
In writing this book, commonly refered to as the “Great American Novel”, F. Scott Fitzgerald achieved in showing future generations what the early twenties were like, and the kinds of people that lived then. He did this in a beautifully written novel with in-depth characters, a captivating plot, and a wonderful sense of the time period.