English 015 - Americans Abroad
October 19, 2003 - October 25, 2003
Dissipation
Category: 05B: Babylon Revisited | Karen Tang
Paris is full of illusions. In Fitzgerald’s Babylon Revisited, Charlie wants to see the “blue hour spread over the magnificent façade, and imagine that the cab horns, playing endlessly the first few bars of Le Plus que Lent, were the trumpets of the Second Empire” (p.386). Paris is veiled...
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Posted by ktang on October 23, 2003 at 02:29 PM
Pleasure's Pull
Category: 05B: Babylon Revisited | Tom Lakin
Babylon Revisted’s Charlie is completely unable to escape the paradise of vice which is Paris. For many at the time, Paris was a kingdom of the rich: a world of endless pleasure which was open to anyone with money enough to throw around. Charlie gets caught up in this lavish...
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Posted by on October 23, 2003 at 02:18 PM
Constant Activity
Category: 05B: Babylon Revisited | Ross Stern
The constant activity that exists in Paris provokes American travelers to pursue lavish, fast paced lifestyles. Babylon Revisited and The Sun Also Rises both depict Paris’s constant activity leading the characters down a path of destruction. In Babylon Revisited, the constant activity and fast pace which Paris caters to ultimately...
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Posted by on October 23, 2003 at 02:18 PM
Familiarity in Paris
Category: 05B: Babylon Revisited | Eric Robinson
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s "Babylon Revisited", Charlie’s familiarity with his surroundings in Paris causes him to fall back into his dissolute way of life. Such dissipation befell him in his past primarily due to his excessive drinking habits while in the city. Upon his next visit to Paris, Charlie...
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Posted by on October 23, 2003 at 02:16 PM
Opportunities Lost
Category: 05B: Babylon Revisited | Bryan Ciborowski
Charlie’s dissipation in Paris is caused by Paris’s plethora of opportunities that were wasted during the time of Charlie’s alcohol problem. Charlie had an opportunity to have a very wholesome life: one that included a loving wife and a daughter. Charlie acknowledges his foolishness when back in Paris sober...
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Posted by on October 23, 2003 at 01:52 PM
sober paris
Category: 05B: Babylon Revisited | Ben Ledue
Paris is the reflection of Charlie's new, sober view of the world. This world is now less exciting, and Charlie's vision of Paris is a mundane one. The memories of his previous experiences in Paris -- especially when drinking -- seem to hold a certain place in his heart. The...
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Posted by on October 23, 2003 at 01:42 PM
False Sense of Ownership
Category: 05B: Babylon Revisited | Diana Heald
“It was not an American bar any more—he felt polite in it, and not as if he owned it. It had gone back to France” (p. 385). In this line, Fitzgerald summarizes the feelings of the Lost Generation, as personified by Charlie: by the late 1920s, they have realized that...
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Posted by on October 23, 2003 at 01:42 PM
Joie de Vivre
Category: 05B: Babylon Revisited | Hope Stockton
Paris has vibrancy. A sense of life, according to Fitzgerald and Hemingway, pervades every street in the city. It is this movement that draws foreigners to the city, and eventually causes them to stop living. In “Babylon Revisited,” Charlie is immediately drawn to Paris with its streets in constant movement,...
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Posted by on October 23, 2003 at 01:42 PM
Economy v Extravagence
Category: 05B: Babylon Revisited | Meg Gray
Paris is a city known for mouth-watering food, magnificent art, exciting people and, in general, pleasure. “Babylon Revisited” proved that these pleasures, both simple and extravagant, should not be measured in terms of cost. Charlie’s dissipation in Paris is a result of his belief that everything worth doing was...
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Posted by on October 23, 2003 at 01:29 PM
Paris
Category: 05B: Babylon Revisited | Thomas Buehrens
Paris is a city that never sleeps. Even uttering the word Paris entices grand visions of a paradise for the wealthy where the champagne never stops flowing. For many people, this lifestyle can lead to the so-called “dissipation” that Fitzgerald comments on in his Babylon Revisited. The opulent behavior of...
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Posted by on October 23, 2003 at 01:22 PM
The "boom"
Category: 05B: Babylon Revisited | Andrew Plowman
In Babylon Revisited, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Paris is described as a gloomy city with very little optimism available to its inhabitants. “Outside, the fire-red, gas-blue, ghost-green signs shone smokily through the tranquil rain”(p.386). The author creates this dreary abyss type atmosphere to parallel the moods of his characters: Marion,...
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Posted by aplowman on October 23, 2003 at 01:20 PM
The City That Never Sleeps
Category: 05B: Babylon Revisited | Matt Nickel
Paris is a city that never closes. Being young and wealthy in a city that never sleeps leads Charlie, the main character in Fitzgerald’s short story “Babylon Revisited” to his dissipation. In the letter Lorraine wrote to Charlie, she reveals that there is always something happening in Paris no matter...
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Posted by on October 23, 2003 at 12:53 PM
Veil of Darkness
Category: 05B: Babylon Revisited
In Babylon Revisited, Charlie has an epiphany while in Montmartre. He comes to an understanding of the word “dissipate,” which has a double-entendre, or double meaning, in the context. First, it means to squander, such as Charlie’s frivolous indulgences with money, which seem giant through a child’s eyes: “thousand...
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Posted by on October 23, 2003 at 12:33 PM
Paying the Price
Category: 05B: Babylon Revisited | Zac Milner
Sometimes people put so much effort into making a moment last that they lose sight of the true meaning of the moment. While in Paris, Charlie was willing to “toss” his not-so-hard-earned “hundred franc notes to a doorman,” all for the sake of “slower and slower motion” (p. 389). Paris...
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Posted by on October 23, 2003 at 12:07 PM
Sanctuaries
Category: 05B: Babylon Revisited | Meaghan Tanguay
“He was not really disappointed to find Paris was so empty. But the stillness in the Ritz bar was strange and portentous. It was not an American bar any more-he felt polite in it, and not as if he owned it. It had gone back into France. He felt the...
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Posted by on October 23, 2003 at 11:47 AM
Emptiness in Paris
Category: 05B: Babylon Revisited | Kelsey Abbruzzese
To Charlie, Paris is emptiness. His daughter has dissipated, becoming nothing out of something (389). Paris swallows Honoria like the foreign tourists, away from Charlie’s love and control. “The Poet’s Café had disappeared, but the two great mouths of the Café of Heaven and the Café of Hell still yawned...
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Posted by on October 23, 2003 at 10:10 AM