“Babylon Revisited”, written just as Fitzgerald faced the prospect that Zelda might be lost to him for good, and in fear for his ability to care for his daughter, is itself a kind of reckoning of the price one has to pay. Financial debts, paying the price for past extravagance, becomes a metaphor for moral debts, the loss of one’s sense of character or one’s personal credit with the world.
Throughout “Babylon Revisited”, Fitzgerald uses economic metaphors to underscore the idea that debts must be paid. The story reverberates with uncanny echoes – or rather, anticipations – of our own era, the way in which we trusted that living on credit could last forever. What Fitzgerald shows us is the effects that this mistake has not only on our economy, but on our characters: that money is the least of what we have to lose.
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Throughout “Babylon Revisited”, Fitzgerald uses economic metaphors to underscore the idea that debts must be paid. The story reverberates with uncanny echoes – or rather, anticipations – of our own era, the way in which we trusted that living on credit could last forever. What Fitzgerald shows us is the effects that this mistake has not only on our economy, but on our characters: that money is the least of what we have to lose.
-More Here
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