Charlie In The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896 in a middle class neighborhood in St. Paul, Minnesota. F. Scott Fitzgerald was equally famous as a writer and as a celebrity author because his lifestyle seemed to symbolize the two decades. F. Scott Fitzgerald writing symbolized the 1920s of partying, drinking, and pursuit to pleasure while in the 1930s stood for the gloomy aftermath of excess.(Mary Loeffelholz 1822) He wrote "Babylon Revisited," imminently after the stock market crashed and became a personal and a national story. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote the novel The Great Gatsby, which was well known and most successful novel he wrote. The Great Gatsby captured what the 1920s were all about with the partying, automobiles, and the garbage
heap captured the contradictions of a consumer society.(Mary Loeffelholz 1823) This made the novel become an instant classic and it remains to this day as a classic. At the end of his life he turned to Hollywood as a screenwriter, he planned to revive his career as a fiction writer, but his health had become ruined by heavy drinking and he died of a heart attack at the age of forty-four.(Mary Loeffelholz 18223) F. Scott Fitzgerald does a good job describing the themes in Babylon Revisited. In Babylon Revisited it describes the journey that the main character Charlie goes through in trying to get his daughter back, Charlie experiences judgment, the past, and loneliness in the novel.
Charlie came to Pairs to get custody of his child, it had been three years since Honoria went to stay with her Aunt Marion and Uncle Lincoln. Charlie faces judgment by his sister-in-law when trying to fight for the custody of his child. Charlie arrives at his sister-in-laws house and starts a conversation with Marion. The first thing she says to Charlie after hearing that he was at the bar this afternoon was, "I should think you'd have enough of the bars."(Fitzgerald 1841) This was the first of many comments Marion would make while Charlie was trying to get Honoria back. Charlie tries to explain himself by saying, I only stayed a minute. I take one drink every afternoon, and no more."(Fitzgerald 1841) A day or so later Charlie comes back to speak to Marion and Lincoln about Honoria. He starts off by saying, "I'm awfully anxious to have a home, and I'm awfully anxious to Honoria in it. I appreciate your taking Honoria for her mother's sake, but things have changed now. As I’ve told you, I haven't had more than a drink a day for over a year, and I take that drink deliberately, so that the idea of alcohol won't get too big in my imagination." (Fitzgerald 1845) Charlie keeps going trying to get his point across, once done the first thing to come out of Marion mouth is, "How long are you planning on staying sober, Charlie?" (Fitzgerald 1846) Marion keeps going with her comments about his drinking. Finally, Marion brings up Helen, Charlie’s dead wife. Marion says, "My duty is entirely to Helen, I try to think what she would have wanted me to do. Frankly, from the night you did that terrible thing you haven't really existed for me. I can't help that. She was my sister." (Fitzgerald 1846) Marion judges Charlie for things he has done in the past, she can't get over the things he has done and that blocking her judgment and what could be best for Honoria. During Charlie’s fight for his daughter, he past comes up to haunt him.
The past showed up throughout this novel for Charlie.
Charlie is trying to get his life together and he feels like he is ready to take on the role of being an actual father. While trying to peruse in his this dream, Charlie’s past keeps coming back up. Charlie is judged by his sister-in-law who holds a grudge against him. Marion binges up Helen, Charlie’s dead wife while Charlie is trying to explain why he can now be the father he should have been to Honoria by saying, "How much you were responsible for Helen's death." (Fitzgerald 1848) This startles Charlie and he says, "Helen died of heart trouble."(Fitzgerald 1848) Then Charlie leaves his sister-in-laws house. That night the image of Helen haunts him. He remembers ever part of that terrible February night. The next morning he gets a call from Marion and he finally hears what he has been waiting since he arrived in Paris. Marion says, "He was perfectly right about Honoria and that she wanted Honoria to be with him. She said she’s glad he was being good and doing better." (Fitzgerald 1849) Things were finally starting to look up for Charlie’s dream of getting Honoria back. After the news settled on Charlie he started to feel sad because he remembered all the plans he and Helen made for Honoria. Once back at the hotel and unexpected note that he received from an old friend that would foreshadow his future. The lovely Lorraine that ended the letter with it saying, "Always devoting, Lorraine." (Fitzgerald 1850) Charlie then arrived at his sister-in-laws home. They start to discuss when Charlie was going to take Honoria, Charlie replied by saying, "As soon as I can get a governess. I hope the day after tomorrow." (Fitzgerald 1850) Marion replied with, "That’s impossible. I’ve got to get her things in shape. Not before Saturday."(Fitzgerald 1850) Right after that the doorbell rang, and then in coming Duncan Scharffer and Lorraine Quarrles. The two of them invited Charlie to dinner when Charlie basically refused and
urged them to leave, then Lorraine replied before leaving saying, "All right, we’ll go. But I remember once when you hammered on my door at four A.M. I was enough of a good sport to give you a drink." (Fitzgerald 1851) After they left Charlie was furious and the Marion became sick so she went to her room. Lincoln informed Charlie that, "Marion's not well and she can't stand the shock. That kind of people make her physically sick."(Fitzgerald 1852) Charlie then asked Lincoln "You mean she changed her mind about Honoria?"(Fitzgerald 1852) All Lincoln could say is I will phone you tomorrow. Charlie's pasted came back and has basically put his dream in jeopardy. He has become lonely and still might end up lonely and his dream crushed.
Charlie has been giving hints that he is lonely throughout the novel. At the beginning, Charlie said, "Things that now he would always remember-his child taken from his control, his wife escapes to the grave in Vermont." (Fitzgerald 1842) He is showing right here that he is lonely. Making me believe since he doesn’t get to party anymore or have anyone run around with that is why he wants Honoria back. At the end when his past came back to haunt him and has hurt his chance of getting Honoria back, he tells Paul, "But I lost everything in the Boom." (Fitzgerald 1852) Then the memory of those days swept over him like a nightmare-the people they had met traveling; then people who couldn't add a row of figures or speak a coherent sentence. The little man Helen had consented to dance with at the ship's party, who had insulted her ten feet from the table; the women and girl carried screaming with drinks, or drugs out of public places-(Fitzgerald 1853) After his memory flooding his thoughts he called Lincoln. Charlie says, "I called up because this thing is on my mind. Has Marion said anything definite?" Lincoln replies, “Marion’s sick, I know this isn’t altogether your fault, but I can't have her go to pieces about it. I’m afraid we'll have to let it slide for six months; I can't take the chance of working her up to this state again."(Fitzgerald 1853) He finished the novel by saying "He was absolutely sure Helen wouldn't want him to be so alone." (Fitzgerald 1853) Charlie at the end of the novel is in a real bad spot, his dreams when deciding to come back to Paris was to be granted guardianship of Honoria but that dream was soon crushed. Charlie’s past came back to bite him in the butt, even when he had no control over what happen. With Marion judgment of Charlie and his past coming back up it seemed he was doomed at the beginning of the novel.
In conclusion F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote a very good novel. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote this novel using real life scenarios that went on in this time period. Charlie and Helen partied it up in Paris in the 1920s and was doing very well in the stock market so they had plenty of money. Then later in life after he loses his wife and basically become less wealthy because the stock market crashes and then he sees he is lonely. That is when Charlie starts to become sober and working to get better and get his child back. This novel is very easy to comprehend and read. It was a very well written novel. The story lets us understand what Charlie is going through and really helps picture his life and what it had become. F. Scott Fitzgerald I feel is a good writer and I like the way he writes. F. Scott Fitzgerald lets us in and shows us every side of Charlie’s life and how he feels throughout the novel it is a very good example of modernism