Babylon Revisited

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses alcoholism.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Babylon Revisited” defies the traditional arc of a redemption story, employing techniques such as internal monologue, dialogue, motifs, and symbolism to paint a portrait of a man whose path to redemption is neither clear nor assured. The story subverts conventional 19th-century narratives in which characters overcome their past misdeeds through a linear progression of penitence and moral triumph. Instead, Fitzgerald presents a world in which the past is not a mere backdrop to be left behind but an intrinsic part of the protagonist’s present struggle.

The story is told through a third-person limited point of view, which allows Fitzgerald to present Charlie’s internal struggles intimately while maintaining narrative distance. This point of view also enables an exploration of the other characters’ perceptions of Charlie, reflecting the social stigma he faces. The use of flashbacks not only portrays Charlie’s hedonistic history but also disrupts the narrative flow and introduces the central conflict, The Haunting Power of the Past, which is constantly pulling the protagonist—and thereby the reader—back into the past he is striving to escape. One particularly poignant moment captures the essence of Charlie’s internal struggle: “But the stillness in the Ritz bar was strange and portentous. It was not an American bar any more—he felt polite in it, and not as if he owned it. It had gone back into France” (Paragraph 9).

Charlie’s internal monologues in “Babylon Revisited” eschew the simplicity of a protagonist on The Quest for Personal Redemption from his past wrongs. Charlie is a man deeply marked by his previous life of luxury and negligence, and these traits continue to color his every decision and interaction. His complexity is revealed through his internal monologues, which often convey a man at odds with himself. When he almost enters one of his former haunts, he thinks before he turns around and leaves the place, “You have to be damn drunk,” suggesting his state of mind when he last frequented the place and his sense of regret at now having “incautiously put his head inside” (Paragraph 53).

The dialogue in the story both reveals and conceals information about the characters by showing different perspectives on past events. Conversations between Charlie and Marion are particularly fraught, with each word weighed down by the history and judgment between them. These exchanges are far from expository; they are battles of will and belief, with Charlie’s sincere efforts at change being met with skepticism rooted in his past indiscretions. It’s through these interactions that Fitzgerald reveals the deep-seated prejudices that can hinder one’s path to redemption, no matter the sincerity of their transformation.

Dialogue also shapes the failure of the redemption narrative’s arc in “Babylon Revisited.” Charlie’s sister-in-law Marion’s conversations with Charlie underscore his potential failure at escaping his past and are fraught with tension and subtext, revealing the deep layers of mistrust and judgment that Charlie navigates on his quest for redemption. When Marion converses with Charlie about living in Paris before and after the economic crash of 1929, she observes, “Now at least you can go into a store without their assuming you’re a millionaire. We’ve suffered like everybody, but on the whole it’s a good deal pleasanter” (Paragraph 43). Charlie’s response indicates his conflicted attitude about his former life in Paris: “But it was nice while it lasted” (Paragraph 44). Charlie’s relationship with his past, more reckless and frivolous self is complex. While acknowledging how his behavior affected those around him, he also remembers enjoying himself.

The dialogue between Marion and Charlie underscores her skeptical understanding of The Fragility of Personal Reform. When Charlie admits that he had been to the Ritz Bar earlier that day, Marion responds, “I should think you’d have had enough of bars” (Paragraph 45). Similarly, when Charlie refuses Marion’s husband Lincoln’s offer of a drink before dinner, saying “I take only one drink every afternoon, I’ve had that,” Marion responds doubtfully, “I hope you keep to it,” suggesting she does not trust Charlie’s resolve (Paragraphs 48-49).

The motifs within the story further complicate the traditional redemption arc. The recurring references to alcohol, for instance, are not just reminders of Charlie’s former vice but also motifs that represent Charlie’s ongoing temptation and fallibility. His self-imposed restriction of “one drink every afternoon” is less a sign of his victory over his addiction and more an acknowledgment of the delicate balance he must maintain (Paragraph 48). The motif of alcohol becomes a thread in the story that ties together Charlie’s past and his precarious hold on his newfound sobriety and the fragility of his aspirations for a reformed life in the future.

Symbolism is prevalent in the narrative, enriching the text with layers of meaning that extend beyond the characters’ immediate reality. Paris itself, transitioning from a Jazz Age playground to a landscape of austerity, symbolizes the world’s—and Charlie’s—shift from frivolity to sobriety:

They were closing the iron grill in front of Brentano’s Book-store, and people were already at dinner behind the trim little bourgeois hedge of Duval’s. He had never eaten at a really cheap restaurant in Paris. Five-course dinner, four francs fifty, eighteen cents, wine included. For some odd reason he wished that he had (Paragraph 27).

The city, once a place of escape and pleasure, is now a maze of memories that Charlie navigates with mixed emotions, illustrating the inescapable nature of his previous actions and their consequences in his current life.

By employing Modernist literary techniques to focus on internal experiences and memories, Fitzgerald constructs a narrative that challenges the reader’s expectations of what a redemption story should entail. Charlie’s journey is not one of unequivocal progress but a series of advances and setbacks, such as the kind that come with recovery from addiction, or presently in the narrative, the agreement to give Honoria to Charlie and then the subsequent revoking of that agreement. The story asserts that the past is a persistent force that cannot simply be discarded or fully atoned for. Instead, the past is a constant companion to be reckoned with, negotiated, and, ultimately, integrated into one’s evolving sense of self.

“Babylon Revisited” thus becomes a testament to the Modernist preoccupation with the fluidity of time (since the past exists in the present) and the fragmented self. Fitzgerald’s narrative rejects the notion of a straightforward path to redemption, suggesting instead that it is a complex, non-linear process fraught with internal and external conflicts. The story’s conclusion, which leaves Charlie’s fate open and unresolved, reinforces the Modernist sentiment that life, unlike many narratives, offers no neat resolutions or guarantees of closure.

Fitzgerald concludes “Babylon Revisited” with Charlie’s resolve to continue fighting for his daughter, showing a glimmer of hope despite the bleakness of his situation. Charlie’s reflection on his past, “It had been given […] as an offering to destiny that he might not remember the things most worth remembering, the things that now he would always remember—his child taken from his control, his wife escaped to a grave in Vermont” sums up the story’s mournful wisdom and the cost of his transformation (Paragraph 59).