"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" F. Scott Fitzgerald

Plot

The narrator tells us at the beginning of the story that he is going to tell us some "astonishing history," and that Mr. and Mrs. Roger Button are expecting a baby. That "baby," however, is not an infant, but an old man, which creates the conflict of the novel. This leads us into the rising action where everyone, including his father, is shocked and appauled by this strange occurance. There is further complication when Benjamin realizes at 12 years of age that he is getting younger. The climax of the novel is unclear, possibly when he meets and marries Hildegarde, when he serves time in the army, or the beginning of his time in college at Harvard. These are all times in his life where he is successful and people appreciate him. After he graduated, everything seemed to go downhill, which would be the resolution. He keeps getting younger and younger, which makes him more dependent on people. His son Roscoe considers him an embarrassing burden. Eventually, the story is concluded when he dies at about 70 years old where he would look like a newborn infant. No questions are really answered about how he dies, whether a woman becomes pregnant, he just disappears, or he dies in his body as a newborn.



Point of View

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is told in the first person point of view. The only real evidence of this is on the first page in the first and second paragraphs where he says, "At present, as so I am told, the high gods of medicine have decreed that the first cries of the young shall be uttered upon the anesthetic air of a hospital, preferably a fashionable one" and "I shall tell you what occurred, and let you judge for yourself." After these two instances, he never uses the first person pronoun of I, so one might assume that it was told in third person limited point of view. Since the narrator knows so much about Benjamin's life, one may infer that he was a friend of the family or something of that matter. However, throughout the story, he seems to keep his feelings out. He never really shows sympathy or disdain, but just tells the story. The narrator seems to be old and not up to date when he says things, such as "so I am told."



Characterization

There are only four main characters discussed in the short story: Benjamin, Roger, and Roscoe. Their roles and personalities shift throughout the story. At the beginning of the story Roger, Benjamin's father, is appauled and embarrassed that his son was born as a 70 year old man. He does everything in his power to make him "normal" or at least camaflouge as best as possible. However, when Benjamin gets older in actual age, but younger in body, his father starts to get along with him and actually enjoy his company. He takes Benjamin with him to social outings where he seems to be proud of his son. At one of these social events, Benjamin meets his future wife, Hildegarde. At the very beginning of their relationship, he is smitten by her, but eventually loses his love for her as she becomes older and more lackluster, and he gets younger and more popular. Hildegarde is one of the minor characters in the story, because not much is told about her. They do, however, have a son together when they were happily married at the beginning. Roscoe is born as a "normal" child, but not much is said about him when he was younger. In the end when Benjamin is in the body of a young child, Roscoe considers him a burden and is mad at him for not acting his age when he has to take care of him. At the beginning of the short story, Benjamin seems content and tries to please his father. As he gets younger, he gets more arrogant and haughty. But as he heads into adolescence, he becomes innocent.



Setting

The story takes place in Baltimore, Maryland from 1860-1930. Therefore, Benjammin was born at the during the Civil War. Although nothing is really mentioned about it, the world is drastically changing just as Benjamin is. On the other hand, the fact that the story takes place in Baltimore is important, because social status is crucial there. It is said that the Button's "held an enviable position, both social and financial in ante-bellum Baltimore." This explains why Roger was so disgraced by the birth of his son as a 70 year old man, because he had a reputation to uphold, and he didn't want this strange occurance to blemish it.



Theme
The main theme of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is isolation and trying to fit in. Throughout the story, Benjamin engages in many group activites that pertain to his age at the time. He joins the army, plays on the football team, and goes to dances. All of these things require interaction with people of the same age group. It seems as though he insists in partaking in these activities to try to fit in, but eventually it singles him out even more. As he grows younger, he is unable to participate in these endeavers, which isolates him. The fact that he is aging backwards makes it impossible to make true friends that he can keep throughout his life. Relationships are crucial in life, and he doesn't even have a healthy relationship with his own son. This fact of the story is quite sad.