Charles Wales of Babylon
Revisited is haunted by the shadow of his past mistakes in a life of
luxury, but pursues a brighter future for his daughter’s sake. The reader
receives glimpses of both his true nature the man he used to be through the
reactions of old friends and acquaintances as he returns to France. Respected
and liked by most, it’s Marion’s reservations that initially leaves reason to be
suspicious of Charlie. As the story progresses however, we do find Charlie to
be a truly changed man. He honors his one day a drink pledge, resists sexual
temptation, and strives to satisfy the role of both parents for his young
daughter. He desperately attempts to re-kindle, or perhaps kindle, a father daughter
relationship in fear of having missed the opportunity. Before he can do that
though, he must convince Marion that he is not the man that had his daughter
taken from him before being promptly placed in a sanitarium. This proves harder
than he expected as he discovers her true hatred of him when she blames her
sister, his wife’s, death on him. Marion perhaps out of care for Honoria, or
jealousy as her husband suggests, begins to withdraw more and more until she
will not see him. Her husband is the bearer of a sad conclusion as he tells
Charlie that she will not relent, but in the last sentence his thoughts are of
himself rather than his daughter. To me, this ending seems to leave the story’s true
ending to the mind of the reader.
I like how fitzgerald was able to bring common addictions and problems into the past. He shows how people still have the same problems that they did back in the 20s. The only difference is back in the 20s no one really knew the damaging effects of addictions. But Fitzgerald did a good job at helping us relate to the 1920s through Charles problems. In the story I like how charles Wales was able to realize that he had a problem and not because he knew what addiction was but because he saw that he had lost everything during his times of drinking and regrets his poor decisions from his wife dying to losing his daughter to losing a lot of money in the stock market crash. I think that charles did change in the end because of his new habits of just having one drink a day to realizing that sending gifts to his daughter wont make the cut in bringing her back and to not hanging out with his friends when they went to party. This is how i know he regrets his decisions and is trying to change for his daughter. Im usually not a big Fitzgerld fan and usually think his stories are boring like the great gatsby but I found myself drawn to this story.
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