Student Question
How does the past superimpose on the present in "Babylon Revisited" and why is it significant?
Quick answer:
In "Babylon Revisited," the past superimposes on the present through Charlie's memories and encounters with former acquaintances, highlighting themes of memory and atonement. His return to Paris, a symbol of his past excesses, contrasts with his current desire to reclaim his daughter and prove his reform. The past, embodied by characters like Duncan and Lorraine, disrupts his efforts, showing how Charlie's past actions continue to affect his present and future aspirations.
Fitzgerald's interweaving of the past with the present in his masterpiece story, "Babylon Revisited" is both a skillful technique which permits the reader's comprehension of more than is narrated and an underpinning of the themes of Memory and Atonement for the Past.
Charlie's concern over time prevails throughout his thoughts as he is haunted by his past and his anxieties about the future. First, he returns with "more judicious eyes" to Paris, both in the hope of regaining custody of his daughter Honoria and in a test of his having conquered the sins of the past, his dissipation and neglect of his responsibilities as a husband and a father. But, his well-meaning intentions for the future are foiled by revisiting "Babylon," the Paris of his dissolute behavior of years before where his old acquaintances of the past reappear at inconvenient times and the image of his wife Helen...
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haunts him while Marion resents him for her sister's death and Charlie rues how they "abuse[d] each other's love." Â
After his second encounter with Lorraine Quarrles and Duncan Schaeffer, an encounter that changes Charlie's sister-in-law's mind about letting Honoria live with her father, Charlie sees his dream end:
...he suddenly realized the meaning of the word "dissipate"--to dissipate into thin air; to make nothing out of something.
For, his sister-in-law, after her discouragement and ill health and adverse circumstances, wants to "believe in tangible villainy and a tangible villain. Charlie, then, becomes the villain.
However, Charlie realizes that "the present was the thing--work to do and someone to love." For, the past is a mere nightmare and the future only a prayer. After his rejection, "He would come back some day; they couldn't make him pay forever." Entrapped by time, Henry will return and fight for his child and his happiness.
In "Babylon Revisited," how does the past affect the present, and why is it significant?
This is a great question based on this excellent short story. I think to answer it we need to remember the context of what is going on here. Charlie is returning to Paris after a long absence to try and re-claim his daughter from his sister-in-law and her husband, who have been looking after her. Charlie was formerly an alcoholic, and they took his daughter in because he had shown himself unable to look after her. As he returns to Paris, he is constantly thinking about what his life was like then, during the carefree days of ridiculous opulence and wealth, compared to the Paris that he visits now: a much grimmer, bleaker place. Therefore one way in which the past is imposed upon the present is through Charlie's own memories:
He remembered thousand-franc notes given to an orchestra for playing a single number, hundred-franc notes tossed to a doorman for calling a cab.
Another way in which the past literally intrudes on the present is when Charlie meets two "sudden ghosts from the past" in the form of Duncan Schaeffer and Lorraine Quarrles. These former partying friends act as a literal reminder of Charlie's drinking past, and of course their appearance ruin his chances of gaining his daughter.
Finally, the past is brought up by Marion as she tries to establish whether her brother-in-law has reformed and stopped drinking. She reveals to us the rather painful memories of what happened between her sister and Charlie, and we can see her reluctance to believe that he truly has reformed.
The repeated references to the past seem to perform the function of constantly questioning or challenging the supposed sobriety of Charlie. He appears to present himself as a reformed alcoholic, yet at the same time he has a past that he appears unwilling or even unable to escape, just as there are hints that his alcoholism is not completely conquered. Charlie, as he returns to Paris, revists his own personal "Babylon," which is full of ghosts, some of them far more substantial than Lorrainne and Duncan.