Return To Babylon - Analysis
"He would come back some day; they couldn’t make him pay forever. But he wanted his child, and nothing was much good now, beside that fact. He wasn’t young any more, with a lot of nice thoughts and dreams to have by himself. He was absolutely sure Helen wouldn’t have wanted him to be so alone."
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.
Charlie’s love for Honoria is the biggest reason for him to regain her custody. Throughout the story, Charlie has expressed how much he loves Honoria and how much he needs her in his life. Honoria also expresses how much she loves her father and how much she misses him. She tells her father more than once that she would rather live with him than with her Aunt Marion. To separate a father and daughter from each other is both devastating and cruel. It is hard to understand why Marion would not let Charlie have Honoria, when Honoria expresses so much love for her father.
"From behind the maid who opened the door darted a lovely little girl of nine who shrieked ‘Daddy!’ and flew up, struggling like a fish, into his arms. She pulled his head around by one ear and set her cheek against his.
‘My old pie,’ he said
‘Oh, daddy, daddy, daddy, dads, dads, dads!’
The narrator does not hesitate to show how much Honoria and Charlie care for each other. Though Honoria was just a little girl, growing up without a father is still harsh. Still her love for Charlie is unconditional, and questions about the past are not brought up. Their strong relationship is alm...
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...reliable is not a good enough reason for me to believe that Charlie is not responsible enough. I think that we have to give the narrator a certain amount of trust because he is the one telling the story and we have no other sources to compare with. If the narrator cannot be considered reliable then the story itself should not be trustworthy enough to read. So we must deal with the facts that are given to us and base most of the decisions on them. With this in mind I look at the situation evenly and try not to fully believe the narrator but still consider what he is saying. I understand that Charlie made a big mistake and hurt not only himself, but those that loved him. There is no excuse for what he did. However, I still believe that the strong bond that is between Honoria and Charlie is unbreakable. Being raised in a family where the strength of love has endured all types of hardships, I have experienced that nothing could ever sever those connections. Loving someone does not mean that Honoria or Marion should try to forget the mistakes Charlie had made or the heartaches he has given them. But instead, to love someone is to learn how to understand and most importantly to forgive.
“The Hills Like White Elephants” and “Babylon Revisited” are two different stories but still have many similarities. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Babylon Revisited is a story that is very similar to what he himself went through in his life. Ernest Hemingway’s The Hills Like White Elephant is a story that has to do with the tough decision a couple will have to make that will either make or break their relationship.
Joy did whatever it took and sometimes it meant not letting Wes leave military school to come home. She stood her ground and wanted to make him a better person, so she made him stick it out. She also valued her kids education so much that she did all she could which meant working multiple jobs just to keep them out of the public schooling system. If Wes didn’t have the support of his mother, he would of turn out like the Other Wes that was in the story and he mostly likely would have gone to jail
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 conclusion the story applies to one of the mercy court value which is integrity meaning that Charlie was very honest about what he wanted to do for his daughter and he admit that he use to be an alcoholic, and he regret the life that he use to live and that is why he is sober now.
...fore the end of the story. The central question of whether or not Charlie would be able to take responsibility for Honoria was left unresolved by the end of the story.
Charlie’s sister didn’t appreciate Charlie in the beginning of the book, but came to love him and trust him as she did when she was younger. During the time Charlie’s sister was involved in an abusive relationship, Charlie unwittingly informed his parents of
Charlie’s story began with the surgery, the biggest decision he made in his life. Although he was a guinea pig in the procedure, he wasn’t worried at all about the surgery, but rather on becoming smart as fast as he could. Supposedly these doctors were doing Charlie the greatest favor he would ever receive, and he was so eager to learn as much as he could. Soon however, Charlie would encounter challenges he never faced with the intelligence of a 6 year old. Before his surgery, Charlie had great friends in Miss Kinnian and the bakery workers. After the surgery the relationships between Charlie and everyone he knew would take a drastic turn.
...of all responsibility (for, of course, there is no way that a normal person could ever kill.) In keeping with this principle the film attempts to absolve Young Charlie from all responsibility in her Uncle's death, for it is seen as an accident that occurred when Young Charlie was fighting her Uncle in self-defence. In the final stages of the film we are brought back to the small town introduced to us in the beginning, this time, however, it is in morning for a beloved son. Charlie's death has brought Graham back to Young Charlie. We can see the good side has won the battle for her. As in early situational Charlie has learned her moral lesson and the episode may end.
...e like splits in the skin that won’t heal because there’s not enough material.” This explains why he will never have custody of his daughter. Because with split skin the repair is next to impossible. Charlie has not proven himself worthy enough to have the custody of his daughter. So the bond between him and his family is not gone. He has proven that he cannot be financially responsible since he lost all of him money during the crash, and lost everything during the boom. So in both stories the bond between a father and his child can be broken with a single act. Family has been a theme in these stories, but choosing weather or not to turn a life around or facing a lifetime of hatred is what a child will decide when comes to blood. Both fathers in these stories proved that not committing any more crimes, or losing the first nine years can be detrimental to child.
“The story employs a dramatic point of view that emphasizes the fragility of human relationships. It shows understanding and agreemen...
What is the you thoroughly understand the term “allegory” and that you can discuss “Babylon Revisited” as an allegory?—This question is garbled and does not make sense.
Nonetheless, this really is a tale of compelling love between the boy and his father. The actions of the boy throughout the story indicate that he really does love his father and seems very torn between his mother expectations and his father’s light heartedness. Many adults and children know this family circumstance so well that one can easily see the characters’ identities without the author even giving the boy and his father a name. Even without other surrounding verification of their lives, the plot, characters, and narrative have meshed together quite well.
Throughout the novel, Charlie’s mother, Rose is portrayed as two people to him. Before Norma’s birth, Rose’s only wish is to make Charlie normal. She sends him to many doctors and tries to teach him how to act like he should. When Norma is born and Rose is sure that she is normal, she becomes abusive to Charlie and beats him if he does not act normal. Knowing that her son is abnormal, she starts reading books and magazines on the subject. She then believes that being tough on him and punishing him will help him improve and become like the others, and even better. When she gives up on trying to make him normal, she threatens to kill him if he does not get sent away. When gaining intelligence, Charlie is haunted by the memories: “It was Rose’s face that brought back the frightening memories. She was two people to me, and I never had a way of knowing which she would be” (Keyes 167). When he visits her, after being separated from his family for a long time, she is a different person. Charlie talks to Rose and tries to make her understand that he was the subject of an operation that made him intelligent. By saying this, Charlie wants her to be proud of him; however, she does not understand that. When Norma comes home, she is relieved and happy that her brother is back. She spends time talking to Charlie and catching up on the years they’ve
At this stage of the story we are compelled to feel a little bit sorry for Charlie who has been separated from his father.
“Once I had believed in father, and the world had seemed small, and old. Now he was gone, and I wasn’t afraid to love him anymore. And the world seemed limitless.” Theroux wrote Charlie to become aware of his father, Allie Fox’s, obsession with becoming a God-like person in a perfect society, in a way that he realizes that this obsession is unhealthy. Charlie, in the beginning of the novel believes that his father is the greatest man alive because of the his inventions and his intelligence, yet throughout the novel Charlie becomes aware that his father is not the greatest. This happens because Allie Fox commits murder using his icebox invention, which in turn caused the natives to become enraged with Fox. At that point Charlie realizes that his father is not the greatest man alive, but instead that he caused great trouble on the island.