Follow a comparison that I wrote sometime before, about two short stories by Scott Fitzgerald. I didn’t make changes in the text now, I’m just publishing it as the way it is.
The Rich Boy & Babylon Revisited
Babylon Revisited and The Rich Boy have some interesting points in common, when we think about the main characters. The two main characters seems like each other, but this conception we could bring just at first glance. Hence if we have an accurate view upon these two stories we will see subtle difference between them. Whereas one character is cynical like a guy with two faces, the other is someone tortured by his past memories.
In the Rich Boy at first paragraph the narrator advise us: “Begin with an individual, and before you know it you find that you have created a type; begin with a type, and you find that you have created–nothing. That is because we are all queer fish, queerer behind our faces and voices than we want any one to know or than we know ourselves” (From the Rich Boy §1). As we can see, Fitzgerald warns us about the cynical persons, for example when he says “ we are all queer fish, queerer behind our faces and voices”. This is the main point that I want to discuss about Anson, because he seems like a person with two personalities or two persons in one (like Jekyll and Hyde). We have to keep in mind that Anson is not a bad person at all, he wanted to be happy, but the problem was in his nature or his origin.
A few lines forward we can understand what is the problem with Anson, “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand” (From the Rich Boy §3). Here Fitzgerald made a generalization about all the riches, including Anson. As we can see, the problem with Anson could be just his money but is not, because out of his money he is an alcoholic person. The alcohol is a problem for him and because of that he somehow hurts all the person around him. However Anson does not care about it, and when he was with Paula’s cousin he did jokes telling that he was French, etc… In addition at chapter IV in first paragraph even his girlfriend “grew to think of him as two alternating personalities” (From the Rich Boy, chap. 4, §1). He was so cynical that in chapter V paragraph 2 despite of “wild night” in the morning after a shower he was able to teach in a Episcopal school. The point to fix about Anson is that he did not regret about his acts.
Charlie in Babylon Revisited in the very beginning when he was rich he was like Anson too. He did not mind a lot about the persons. When United States was starting to sink in the prelude of stock crash he went to Europe (like all the rich “Americans”) to spend his money and have a luxurious life with his wife. During that period Charlie was an alcoholic person like Anson and he did not care about the persons too. In a given day he locked his own wife out of their home in the winter, this action could be the trigger of her disease.
Time passed and Charlie’s wife died and he lost his family and his money. We could think that with all the things lost, Charlie would drink and drink until his death but he would not. Charlie began everything again in a new job, in his life and his family as well. Different from Anson in the Rich Boy, Charlie was humble and admitted his weakness toward alcoholism. The things seemed to change a bit when he started to earn money in his job again, just because the thought he could have all the things through money including his daughter Honoria. In chapter two a dialog between Honoria and his father show it: “First, we’re going to that toy store in the Rue Saint-Honoré and buy you anything you like. And then we’re going to the vaudeville at the Empire.” She hesitated. “I like it about the vaudeville, but not the toy store.” “Why not?” “Well, you brought me this doll.” She had it with her. “And I’ve got lots of things. And we’re not rich any more, are we?”. It is funny but despite of Honoria age she seemed more adult than her father, or maybe he had bad intentions to take her in the toy store. Charlie should have gain his daughter through love, and not through money and gifts. Despite this problem Charlie was a good man at all, I think he was trying to be good just because his sorrow past and the memories which tormented him.
The last paragraph of Babylon Revisited and the Rich Boy have a similar image. In the Rich Boy Anson would have cocktail or could do the jokes like in the past, but he changed. Anson was not more the same, we came to know about it in the following sentence “I don’t think he was ever happy”. Charlie in Babylon Revisited showed something similar too, he changed or at least made efforts to change. The last paragraph of Babylon Revisited was an epiphany about Charlie where he came to know his situation and he said “No, no more”. He said it not for another drink, but to all the facts related to his life.
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