Morality and the Failure of Redemption : F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Babylon Revisited” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”

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This paper examines thematic similarities between the mythical story of the Wandering Jew and the works of F.Scott Fitzgerald; more specifically his short stories“Babylon Revisited” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” Permeating all three tales are themes of wandering, inability to escape the repercussions of the past, and debt, particularly to the dead, that can never be repaid. I argue that the protagonists of“Babylon Revisited”and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”have serious and unredeemable moral debts they acquired spontaneously. I argue that in both stories, Fitzgerald deliberately draws on the myth to explore issues of moral redemption,guilt,suffering,and the impossibility to revisit the past to retrieve and heal previous transgressions;and that these themes are exemplified in the stories circular narrative structures.

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Details 詳細情報について

  • CRID
    1390290699771021568
  • NII Article ID
    120005572439
  • NII Book ID
    AA12118273
  • DOI
    10.14943/jgsl.10.87
  • HANDLE
    2115/58210
  • ISSN
    18808832
  • Text Lang
    en
  • Article Type
    departmental bulletin paper
  • Data Source
    • JaLC
    • IRDB
    • CiNii Articles
  • Abstract License Flag
    Allowed

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