1924 had escalated into a full-blown bull market by 1927. This boom, however, was driven by unprecedented levels of speculative money and "margin" stock purchases, where investors could borrow to buy stocks with as little as ten percent down. In June 1929, economist John Kenneth Galbraith described a "mass escape from reality" as the U.S. stock market soared, with stock prices reaching unprecedented heights. Galbraith noted, "Never before or since have so many become so wondrously, so effortlessly, and so quickly rich." But in September 1929, the overvalued stocks, widespread indebtedness from banks' loans to speculating investors, and underlying weaknesses in the U.S. economy triggered a prolonged freefall in stock prices that wiped out both novice and experienced investors, regardless of their income level. As panicked investors rushed to sell their stocks to avoid total losses, the market succumbed to what Galbraith termed "blind, relentless fear." The worst of the crash occurred on October 29, 1929, but even after a brief stabilization in June 1930, Wall Street continued to decline until June 1932. In 1930 alone, one thousand U.S. banks closed, and by the end of the year, three million Americans were unemployed, with the savings of hundreds of thousands wiped out. By 1933, the U.S. gross national product had shrunk by a third compared to 1929, and only the massive military buildup for World War II eventually pulled the global economy out of what became known as the Great Depression.

From the outset of his career, Fitzgerald closely associated himself with the American experience. He was captivated by American history and skillfully integrated it into the plots and themes of his significant works. Although he did not personally endure the sudden transition from wealth to poverty that many Americans faced in the fall of 1929, he quickly grasped its importance and wove it into his writing. In his 1930 personal ledger, for instance, he noted, "The Crash! Zelda + America." Fitzgerald equated the "crash" of his own life—marked by his wife Zelda's first nervous breakdown—with the collapse of the U.S. economy. Fitzgerald held conflicting views about the drastic shift in America's fortunes before and after the stock market crash. On one hand, he remarked, "it is the custom now to look back on ourselves of the boom days with a disapproval that approaches horror. But it had its virtues, that old boom: Life was a good deal larger and gayer for most people.... There were so many good things." On the other hand, by the mid-1930s, he characterized the 1920s as "the most expensive orgy in history" and reflected that the youthful joy he experienced during that period was as "unnatural as the Boom; and my recent experience parallels the wave of despair that swept the nation when the Boom was over."

Setting and Symbolism
"Babylon Revisited" is set in Paris, France around 1930, one year after the U.S. stock market crash that devastated many American fortunes. The story's title draws a parallel between Paris and the ancient biblical city of Babylon (located near present-day Baghdad, Iraq), known for its sin and vice. Similar to the Babylonian Jews in the Bible who abandoned their Mosaic law to worship pagan idols, Charlie in his former life was led astray by Paris's indulgent lifestyle, losing grip on his traditional American values. For Charlie, Paris is both enchanting and perilous. The Place de la Concorde still holds its "pink majesty," and the facade of the Paris opera house remains "magnificent," but the vibrant allure of Parisian nightlife from the twenties has faded. Paris, like the iconic Ritz Hotel where the story begins and ends, "had gone back into France," and Charlie no longer feels "as if he owned it." Viewing Paris with "clearer and more judicious eyes," Charlie now sees it as "provincial," even "bleak and sinister." The city caters to "vice and waste" on an "utterly childish scale," and grim tourist traps lure travelers wary of its nude revues and prowling prostitutes.

Charlie's perspective on Paris mirrors Fitzgerald's own feelings. In 1927, Fitzgerald wrote, "The best of America drifts to Paris. The American in Paris is the best American.... France has the only two things toward which we drift as we grow older—intelligence and good manners." However, by 1931, Fitzgerald was alarmed by the influx of newly wealthy Americans who had flocked to France before the crash: "With each new shipment of Americans spewed up by the boom the quality fell off, until toward the end there was something sinister about the crazy boatloads." For Fitzgerald, France had become merely "a land," while "the best of America was the best of the world." He believed America's "simple pa and ma and son and daughter" were "infinitely superior in their qualities of kindness and curiosity to the corresponding class in Europe." Fitzgerald's biographer, Matthew J. Bruccoli, highlights Fitzgerald's sense of alienation from Paris and France as a whole, stating he "remained a tourist," "never felt at home in France," and that France "intensified his identification with his native land." Additionally, in Fitzgerald's fiction, France is often portrayed, as Bruccoli notes, as "a place where Americans deteriorate or sometimes demonstrate their superiority over the natives." In "Babylon Revisited," Charlie experiences both: he briefly enjoys a sense of infallible "royalty," but eventually succumbs to nightmarish "dissipation."

Point of View
While Charlie is not the direct narrator of "Babylon Revisited," the story is predominantly seen through his perspective. The narrator, however, maintains a degree of separation from Charlie by occasionally providing insights that Charlie himself is unaware of or does not believe. For instance, the narrator mentions that Marion Peters "once possessed a fresh American loveliness" but adds that "Charlie had never been sensitive to it and was always surprised when people spoke of how pretty she had been." Similarly, when Charlie attempts to convince Marion that he deserves another chance as Honoria's father, the narrator shares Marion's perspective: "part of her saw that Charlie's feet were planted on the earth now, and her own maternal feeling recognized the naturalness of his desire; but she had lived for a long time with a prejudice—a prejudice founded on a curious disbelief in her sister's happiness, and which, in the shock of that one terrible night, had turned to hatred for him. It had all happened at a point in her life where the discouragement of ill health and adverse circumstances made it necessary for her to believe in tangible villainy and a tangible villain."

Throughout "Babylon Revisited," the narrator almost always presents the story from Charlie's perspective. Charlie views Paris as a dangerous and decadent place, rather than one of the world's most beautiful cities. The ultimate judgment on whether Charlie has truly escaped his alcoholic past largely hinges on whether readers believe his self-assessments. Occasionally, Charlie seems to directly address the reader through the narrator. Reflecting on the night he locked Helen out in the snow, the narrator asks, "How could he know she would arrive an hour later alone, that there would be a snowstorm in which she wandered about in slippers, too confused to find a taxi?" In several parts of the story, the narrator's voice and Charlie's thoughts blend seamlessly, creating an almost interior monologue: "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"; "He believed in character; he wanted to jump back a whole generation and trust in character again as the eternally valuable element. Everything else wore out"; or, "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 was absolutely sure Helen wouldn't have wanted him to be so alone." In passages like these, the third-person narrator and Charlie's voice seem to merge into one.

Structure
The structure of a fictional work refers to the overall organization of the scenes or events that compose the narrative. In its broadest outline, "Babylon Revisited" is divided into five sections. The first and last sections are set in the same place, the bar at the Hotel Ritz in Paris, effectively framing the story. In section 1, Charlie informs the Ritz bartender that he will be staying in Paris for "four or five days," with each section of the story covering the events of these days. Only in the fifth and final section does Fitzgerald deviate from this pattern, shifting to the evening of the fourth day instead of Charlie's fifth day in Paris.

Many critics have lauded the structure of "Babylon Revisited." One critic argued that the story's plot is more minimalistic than it seems: there is essentially one significant scene—the interruption by Lorraine and Duncan at the Peters's house on the night Charlie hopes to regain custody of his daughter. The rest of the story builds up to this pivotal moment. Other critics have suggested that Fitzgerald structured the story with two climaxes: one in section 3, when Charlie learns that Marion will grant him custody of Honoria, and another in section 4, when Lorraine and Duncan's unexpected arrival causes Marion to change her mind. Several critics have also observed that the story alternates between scenes, reflecting the internal conflicts within Charlie. According to one critic, Fitzgerald alternates between interior scenes (the Ritz bar, a restaurant with Honoria, the Peters's home) and exterior scenes (Paris at night) to create a backdrop of "Babylonian" corruption against which the story of a man's quest to regain his daughter unfolds. This alternating structure also mirrors Charlie's external struggle to regain custody of Honoria and his internal battle with his past, his guilt, and his confidence in his own recovery and integrity.

Other Symbols
In "Babylon Revisited," two of the most significant symbols are the swing or pendulum and the door. The swing first appears in a dream Charlie has, where Helen is seen "swinging faster and faster" on a swing, speaking comforting words until her motion makes her words indistinguishable. Later, after Lorraine and Duncan disrupt Charlie's plans at the Peters's, he notices Lincoln Peters "swinging Honoria back and forth like a pendulum." These symbols connect Helen and Honoria as the central loves of Charlie's life and emphasize the importance of time in the narrative. The swing and pendulum's motion mirrors the accelerating pace of the story, where events unfold rapidly. For instance, on Charlie's fourth day in Paris, he transitions from feeling "happy," with "the door of the world" open to him, to being unexpectedly defeated and left alone in a hotel bar to reflect on his guilt and loneliness. The swing and pendulum also symbolize the tension between Charlie's troubled, alcohol-fueled past and his uncertain present as he strives for a future filled with happiness, honor, and self-control.

In "Babylon Revisited," doors symbolize both hope and danger. Fitzgerald uses doors early in the story to represent the consuming "mouths" of Paris's indulgent nightclubs. After his initial visit with the Peters in section 1, Charlie revisits his old Parisian haunts: "He passed a lighted door from which issued music, and stopped with the sense of familiarity.... A few doors farther on he found another rendezvous and incautiously put his head inside.... The Poet's Cave had disappeared but the two great mouths of the Cafe of Heaven and the Cafe of Hell still yawned—even devoured, as he watched, the meager contents of a tourist bus." In these moments, the doors of Paris's clubs are akin to the doors of hell, luring tourists with "frightened eyes" to waste their money on "drink or drugs" and succumb to Paris's temptations. Later, Lorraine, a "ghost" from Charlie's past, reminds him of another similar door, opened to satisfy his craving for alcohol: "I remember once when you hammered on my door at four A.M. I was enough of a good sport to give you a drink."

The main door image in the narrative is the one Charlie locked behind him a year and a half before the story begins, abandoning his wife in the snow and possibly contributing to her death from heart failure. As Charlie confesses, it was the most atypical action of his life: "Locking out Helen didn't fit in with any other act of his life." Closing that door marked the end of his marriage and, he now hopes, the end of his self-indulgent, alcoholic lifestyle before the crash. Fitzgerald also uses door imagery to symbolize a metaphorical gateway to Charlie's hopeful new future with Honoria. The first door encountered in the story, in fact, opens to reveal "a lovely little girl of nine"—Honoria—who shrieks with joy as she leaps into Charlie's arms. The door as a symbol of Charlie's potential future with Honoria is then revisited the morning after Charlie learns that Marion will allow him to regain custody of his daughter: "He woke up feeling happy. The door of the world was open again."

However, the next door to open brings Lorraine and Duncan Schaeffer into the Peters' home, shattering Marion's confidence in Charlie's reformed image: "The door opened upon another long ring, and then voices, and the three in the salon looked up expectantly.... the voices developed under the light into Duncan Schaeffer and Lorraine Quarrles." Although their arrival separates Charlie from Honoria once more, the final door image in the story returns to the door as a positive symbol, like the open "door of the world" that Charlie first saw when he was reunited with Honoria in section 1: "Then he opened the door of the dining room and said in a strange voice, 'Good night, children.' Honoria rose and ran around the table to hug him."

Perhaps the most evident symbol in the story, however, is Honoria. Charlie's purpose for being in Paris is to regain his honor, which is embodied in his daughter, Honoria.

Lost Generation
Fitzgerald is frequently linked with a group of American writers born around the early twentieth century, who came of age during World War I. Many of them, including Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, poet Hart Crane, and critic Malcolm Cowley, lived as expatriates in Europe throughout the 1920s. This group is known for rejecting the outdated conventions of the past. Hemingway attributed the term Lost Generation to a comment Stein overheard from an auto mechanic, who criticized his younger colleagues' inability to repair Stein's car by saying, "You are all a lost generation." Hemingway later used this phrase as the epigraph for his renowned novel The Sun Also Rises (1926), and it came to symbolize his generation's disillusionment with traditional values after the horrors of World War I.

In "Babylon Revisited," the theme of disconnecting from these traditional (American) values is explored. Marion and Lincoln Peters embody the sober, cautious, family-centered values of an earlier America. In contrast, the "haunted" Charlie represents the consequences of abandoning these values in favor of the temptations posed by unearned wealth and indulgent, immoral behavior. This notion that Charlie's (and Fitzgerald's) generation might have strayed from the firm values of their predecessors is reflected in Charlie's declaration that "he believed in character; he wanted to jump back a whole generation and trust in character again as the eternally valuable element. Everything else wore out."

1930s: On October 28, 1929, the stock market plummets by 12.8 percent. This event, known as "Black Thursday," triggers widespread panic, numerous bank failures, and ushers in the Great Depression, which endures throughout the 1930s.

1997: On October 27, the stock market drops by 7.2 percent, marking the largest one-day point loss in history. To prevent panic, computers automatically halt trading. Despite the dramatic decline, driven by unstable Asian markets, the New York Stock Exchange makes a significant recovery the following trading day.

1930s: Alcoholism is poorly understood. Individuals manage the condition as best they can. In 1935, Bill Wilson organizes Alcoholics Anonymous in New York City, marking the first significant effort to address the issue. This self-help fellowship empowers alcoholics to control their drinking habits.

1990s: Alcoholics Anonymous has grown to more than 30,000 local groups across 90 countries, with an estimated membership exceeding one million. The program emphasizes spiritual values as a path to recovery.

1930s: Josephine Baker becomes the toast of Paris. After leaving the United States for what she describes as a more welcoming culture, she becomes one of France's most beloved entertainers. Following her success in the Folies Bergere, she opens her own nightclub and continues to perform until her death in 1974.

1990s: In 1991, Lynn Whitfield stars in the film The Josephine Baker Story, which chronicles Baker's rise from poverty in St. Louis at the turn of the century to her fame and her involvement in various causes, including children's welfare and the U.S. civil rights movement.

The film The Last Time I Saw Paris, directed by Richard Brooks, is an adaptation of "Babylon Revisited." It features Elizabeth Taylor, Van Johnson, Walter Pidgeon, Donna Reed, Eva Gabor, and Roger Moore. Released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1954, it can still be obtained from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

An audio book version titled Babylon Revisited and Other Stories was produced, with narration by Alexander Scourby. Released by Listening Library in 1985, it is distributed by Newman Communications Corporation.

Sources
Baker, Carlos. "When the Story Ends: 'Babylon Revisited.'" In The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald: New Approaches in Criticism, edited by Jackson R. Bryer, pp. 269-77. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982.

Bruccoli, Matthew J. Some Sort of Epic Grandeur. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981, pp. 308-09.

Eble, Kenneth E. "Touches of Disaster: Alcoholism and Mental Illness in Fitzgerald's Short Stories," in The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald: New Approaches in Criticism, edited by Jackson R. Bryer, University of Wisconsin Press, 1982, pp. 39-52.

Galbraith, John Kenneth. The Great Crash: 1929. Houghton Mifflin, 1961.

Toor, David. "Guilt and Retribution in 'Babylon Revisited.'" In Fitzgerald/Hemingway Annual 1973, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli and C. E. Frazer Clark, Jr., pp. 155-64. Washington, D.C.: Microcard Editions Books, 1974.

Further Reading
Gallo, Rose Adrienne. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Modern Literature Monographs, Frederick Ungar Publishing, 1978, pp. 101-5.
Gallo suggests that Fitzgerald implies Charlie has not entirely abandoned his past alcoholic behavior and commends Fitzgerald’s "brilliant evocation of place."

Lehan, Richard. "The Romantic Self and the Uses of Place in the Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald," in The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald: New Approaches in Criticism, edited by Jackson R. Bryer, University of Wisconsin Press, 1982, pp. 3-21.
Lehan highlights Fitzgerald's blend of personal experience with the broader "spirit of the times" in the story. Charlie's downfall is portrayed as intertwined with the disintegration of his era. The "note of loss" that envelops Charlie's situation at the story's end reflects Fitzgerald's recurring theme that his characters' tragedies mirror the significant events in society.

Mangum, Bryant. "F. Scott Fitzgerald," in Critical Survey of Short Fiction, pp. 858-66.
Mangum asserts that in "Babylon Revisited," Fitzgerald balances the reader's perception that Marion unjustly torments Charlie with the notion that Charlie must face the consequences of his pre-crash recklessness. Fitzgerald achieves this balance by having Marion keep custody of Honoria while offering Charlie hope for future attempts to regain his daughter. Mangum views the story as a precursor to Tender Is the Night, as it effectively explores the father-daughter dynamic and creates a "mythic level" where everything pushes Charlie into "exile" from the "fallen" city of Paris.

Prigozi, Ruth. "Fitzgerald's Short Stories and the Depression: An Artistic Crisis," in The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald: New Approaches in Criticism, edited by Jackson R. Bryer, University of Wisconsin Press, 1982, pp. 111-26.
Prigozi argues that "Babylon Revisited" exemplifies Fitzgerald's "nuanced and elliptical" style found in his "masterpieces," using a sophisticated method to depict scenes and atmosphere, delving into themes of struggle, accountability, professionalism, and "above all ... that elusive trait, character."

Staley, Thomas F. "Time and Structure in Fitzgerald's 'Babylon Revisited.'" Modern Fiction Studies, Vol. 10, No. 1, Winter, 1964-65, pp. 386-88.
Examines the narrative structure of the story.