The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald [PDF]

Information: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

• Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Publication Date: 1922
• Main Characters:
  • Benjamin Button: The protagonist, born as an old man who ages in reverse, experiencing life from elderly to infant.
  • Roger Button: Benjamin's father, a respectable Baltimore businessman embarrassed and bewildered by his son's condition.
  • Hildegarde Moncrief: Benjamin's wife, initially attracted to his mature appearance but grows distant as he becomes younger.
  • Roscoe Button: Benjamin's son, who becomes increasingly resentful as his father reverse-ages into a child.
• Brief Summary: Benjamin Button is born in 1860 as an elderly man in a Baltimore hospital, shocking his family and doctors. As the years pass, he grows physically younger while everyone around him ages normally. He attends Yale, fights in the Spanish-American War, runs a successful business, and falls in love with Hildegarde Moncrief, whom he eventually marries. But as Benjamin continues to reverse-age, his marriage deteriorates and his relationships with his son and grandchildren become strained. The story follows him from old age to infancy, ending as he fades into nothingness, a life lived in the wrong direction.
• Thematic Analysis: The story explores themes of identity, social conformity, and the relentless passage of time. Fitzgerald uses the reverse-aging conceit to expose how deeply society values youth and appearance over character. It also touches on the isolation that comes with being fundamentally different, and the bittersweet nature of memory and loss.
• Historical Context: Fitzgerald wrote this story in 1921 and it was first published in Collier's Magazine on May 27, 1922, later included in his collection Tales of the Jazz Age that same year. The early 1920s were a period of post-war optimism and cultural upheaval in America, and Fitzgerald was emerging as a literary voice of the Jazz Age. He reportedly drew inspiration from a Mark Twain remark that life's best moments come at the beginning and its worst at the end.