Money and morality in Fitzgerald's "Babylon Revisited"

¶ … Babylon Revisited:" the inability of money to buy happiness

Scott Fitzgerald's short story "Babylon Revisited" presents what on its surface seems like a custody struggle between Charlie Wales and his sister and brother-in-law Marion and Lincoln Peters over Charlie's daughter Honoria. However, the fight between the family members is really ideological in nature and reflects Marion's disapproval of Charlie, whom she blames for her sister's death. The daughter becomes a symbol of the sense of 'honor' Charlie wishes to regain as a father and his lost innocence; for the Peters (particularly Marion), Honoria represents the family honor they wish to rehabilitate -- if they can prove Charlie is an unfit parent they feel they can 'prove' that the 'heart trouble' that killed Helen was really Charlie's fault and the result of his drunken behavior and ill-treatment. The story acts as an expose of materialism: all of the members of Charlie's elite social set are wealthy and prize money (Charlie's wealth is one reason Marion is so resentful of him) but ultimately money cannot buy happiness or the custody of Honoria.

Fitzgerald was famous for saying that the rich are 'different.' Yet Hemingway obliquely criticized this philosophy in his short story "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," when he noted that the Fitzgerald-like character Julian, thought wealthy people "were a special glamorous race and when he found they weren't it wrecked him just as much as any other thing that wrecked him." In "Babylon Revisited," the rich are just as petty as anyone else, and just as blind, even though they have nannies for their children and go to fancy clubs. They are also just as greedy. Even though everyone is relatively affluent they consider themselves poor in terms of how they measure up to the standards of other wealthy people.

Because they are so acutely conscious of those who have more, even the rich feel poor in Hemingway's world. Even the little girl Honoria asks her father at one point if they are poor and hesitates about letting him by her a doll. Of course, by most standards, Charlie Wales has never been 'poor' but by the standards of upper class society he was after the crash. His newly-acquired wealth also is the source of the resentment Marion feels for him, although she blames his alcoholism and treatment of her sister rather than class antagonism. "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," she says, obliquely referring to the stock market crash and her own perceived poverty. "But it was nice while it lasted," Charlie responds, noting "We were a sort of royalty, almost infallible, with a sort of magic around us" although clearly this sense of entitlement did not protect him from problems (Fitzgerald I). Charlie's word choice suggests that he regards himself as a kind of royalty because he could buy things. Later, when arguing over Honoria's guardianship Charlie will state he can give his daughter some advantages, such as a French governess. "He stopped, realizing that he was blundering. They couldn't be expected to accept with equanimity the fact that his income was again twice as large as their own" (Fitzgerald III).

Charlie realizes that wealth and social status is something transient; it is something that quite literally dissipates into the air. "All the catering to vice and waste was on an utterly childish scale, and he suddenly realized the meaning of the word 'dissipate' -- to dissipate into thin air; to make nothing out of something. In the little hours of the night every move from place to place was an enormous human jump, an increase of paying for the privilege of slower and slower motion" (Fitzgerald I). Within a relatively short span of time, he has lost everything -- child, wife, and fortune. And although he has regained the latter, this feels meaningless in light of his loss of the people he once cared most about. Even though Marion and Lincoln have less money, they still have his child and the ability to 'imprint' upon her in a way he cannot, despite his many financial advantages.

Though he is once again wealthy, Charlie is shown to have very normal desires, like the desire to parent his own child and have an influence over her. "She was already an individual with a code of her own, and Charlie was more and more absorbed by the desire of putting a little of himself into her before she crystallized utterly" (Fitzgerald II). Also despite his wealth, Charlie is faced with his own sense of ordinariness. Just like many men with less money, he fought with his wife, had problems with alcohol, and has a difficult time making a case for his 'reform.'

Charlie is also unable to escape his past: not only does he run into friends from his old days of dissipation while in France; Marion continually reminds him of his failure as a husband. Charlie feels he has begun a new life now that he only has one drink a day and is rich again, but his displacement from his daughter is a daily reminder that he is still being punished for being the man he was.

While daughter evidently wants to live with him, Charlie feels guilty for being a bad father, for his alcoholism, and for the resentment of his in-laws. All of the money in the world cannot 'buy' the things Charlie wants to buy, namely the ability to make amends for what he did as an alcoholic husband to Helen (which included locking Helen out of her own house at one point). His money cannot change the past. At the end of the story Marion claims to be sick, causing Lincoln (a weak man who likes Charlie but who is unable to resist his wife's will) to be dissuaded in giving up Honoria. Charlie realizes the only thing he can give his daughter is 'things' -- not an example to follow, a home, or something substantial. "There wasn't much he could do now except send Honoria some things; he would send her a lot of things tomorrow. He thought rather angrily that this was just money -- he had given so many people money. . . ." (Fitzgerald V).