Charlie Wales Deserves Custody in "Babylon Revisited"
This paper analyzes F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story "Babylon Revisited" through the lens of Charlie Wales's moral redemption and his relationship with his daughter Honoria. The paper argues that Charlie, despite his troubled past during the Jazz Age, has genuinely reformed: he has maintained sobriety, resisted temptation, and demonstrated emotional intelligence in reconnecting with Honoria. It further contends that his sister-in-law Marion's refusal to grant him custody stems not from a fair assessment of his character but from personal grief and spite, making her judgment of Charlie more a reflection of her own lack of compassion than of his actual fitness as a father.
- Introduction: Charlie's Situation in Paris: Charlie's past, his wife's death, and custody dispute
- Charlie and Honoria: A Bond That Endures: Father-daughter reunion and emotional connection
- The Weight of the Past: Marion's grief and Charlie's haunting old friends
- Charlie's Reformation and Marion's Refusal: Charlie rejects old companions; Marion remains unmoved
- Marion's Judgment and Its Fairness: Marion's spite versus Charlie's actual character
- Conclusion: Charlie's Virtues and the Case for Custody: Charlie's demonstrated virtues justify custody restoration
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper builds a clear, arguable thesis — that Charlie deserves custody — and supports it with specific textual evidence, including direct quotations and scene analysis.
- It balances sympathy for Charlie with acknowledgment of his genuine flaws, which strengthens rather than weakens the argument by showing intellectual honesty.
- The counterargument through Marion's perspective is addressed directly, allowing the paper to reframe her opposition as emotionally motivated rather than factually grounded.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper uses close reading effectively. The analysis of the doll scene — in which Charlie pretends to meet Honoria for the first time — unpacks both the playful surface and the deeper emotional significance of the moment, demonstrating how literary details can carry thematic weight. Quoting Honoria's improvised response and then interpreting it adds concrete textual grounding to a claim about character and relationship.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a plot summary that establishes context and stakes, then presents its thesis. It moves into a focused analysis of the Charlie–Honoria relationship, pivots to the obstacle posed by Marion and Charlie's past friends, evaluates the fairness of Marion's judgment, and closes by restating Charlie's demonstrated virtues. The structure follows a classic literary argument arc: claim, evidence, complication, rebuttal, conclusion.
Introduction: Charlie's Situation in Paris
In F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Babylon Revisited", Charlie Wales is an American in Paris, estranged from his in-laws and desperate to be reunited with his daughter Honoria. Throughout his stay in the city, the narrative offers glimpses of Charlie's decadent past — a lifestyle defined by the riotous Jazz Age prior to the 1929 market crash and the ensuing Great Depression. It is in that period of loss that Charlie's life begins to change, but not without a cost.
Charlie's sister-in-law Marion cannot forgive him for what he did to her sister, his wife: he locked her out of their home in the middle of winter after he saw her kiss another man. That night wandering in the cold was the "beginning of the end" for her, and she later died. Marion and her husband Lincoln now look after Charlie's daughter Honoria, who also wants to be reunited with her father.
Charlie's past lifestyle — the drunken nights — continues to haunt him, both literally (as it serves as the pretext for Marion refusing to grant custody of Honoria to Charlie) and figuratively (as former "friends" continuously reappear to tempt him back to his old ways). Yet Charlie shows no signs of wanting to return to that life. The past, for him, is as dead as his wife. He has sworn off drinking and has been sober for more than a year — a condition he hopes to maintain "permanently," as he tells Marion during one particularly unpleasant inquisition. This paper argues that because of Charlie's clear turning over of a new leaf, the remorse he feels for having locked his wife out, and the love that still bonds him to his daughter, Charlie is not as "bad" as Marion makes him out to be and deserves custody of Honoria.
Charlie and Honoria: A Bond That Endures
One of the most compelling reasons to recognize Charlie's good nature is his rapport with his daughter Honoria. When the two are reunited, she is overjoyed to see him, and he her. They go out together, yet Charlie recognizes that the time apart has created a distance in their relationship. She has grown during his absence in Prague, and he feels compelled to make up for lost time by buying her gifts — yet she is mature enough to understand that everyone is hurting from the Great Depression and that gifts are unnecessary. Besides, he has already bought her a doll.
Even this doll becomes a symbol of how much Honoria has matured. Sensing the gap between them, Charlie devises a playful gesture: he pretends to be meeting his daughter for the first time. It is heartfelt as much as it is playful, and it allows them to instantly bridge the distance that time and circumstance have created. He sees the doll and, still playing the role of a stranger being introduced, says, "But I see you have a child, madame." The jest is a pure one and makes Honoria laugh.
More telling of their connection is the fact that she plays along with remarkable ease: "Unwilling to disinherit it, she took it to her heart and thought quickly: 'Yes, I've been married, but I'm not married now. My husband is dead.'" The reader realizes immediately that Charlie and Honoria share a special bond. They care for one another, love one another, and feel genuine affection — the kind that survives long separation and cannot be manufactured. This scene alone establishes Charlie as not only a loving father but also an emotionally intelligent one, capable of reading his daughter's needs and responding with warmth.
The Weight of the Past
Yet Charlie's past lingers. Even Honoria's improvised mention of a dead spouse is a haunting echo that Charlie wishes to leave behind. Marion, however, will not allow him to forget. She holds the death of her sister over his head, viewing Charlie as directly responsible. This unwillingness to forgive, combined with the reappearance of Charlie's old companions, gives Marion fresh excuses to refuse his request for custody. Those companions — holdovers from his carefree drinking days — show up at inconvenient moments to remind everyone, including Marion, of the man Charlie used to be.
The Jazz Age lifestyle that Charlie once embodied is precisely the specter Marion invokes every time she is confronted with a reason to relent. His past is not merely a personal burden; in Marion's eyes, it is a permanent character verdict.
Conclusion: Charlie's Virtues and the Case for Custody
The fact is Charlie has changed. He has sobered up, acted more responsibly, and taken care to manage his finances. He still has his flaws — he wants to impress, and he retains a weakness for alcohol — but he is actively managing them. The reason he is denied his daughter is not a failing within himself but rather a failing in Marion: she withholds Honoria out of spite, locking Charlie out of her home just as he once locked her sister out of his.
That arrangement may feel emotionally satisfying to Marion, but it does not reflect Charlie's actual character or his capacity as a father. His virtues are evident throughout the story. He turns down one temptation after another — a woman of the night, capricious old friends, invitations to drink — and the sincerity of his heart is most visible in the Fitzgerald-crafted moments he shares with Honoria, who clearly loves him and wants to be with him. Charlie Wales is not the man Marion insists he is. He is a man who has paid for his mistakes and is genuinely trying to do better — and that, the story suggests, ought to be enough.
Works Cited
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. "Babylon Revisited." Gutenberg. Web. 30 Oct 2016.
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