F. Scott Fitzgerald “Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Differs from the movie: 1) adds love story/love interest; 2) war experience/hero; 3) Louisiana/fishing boat; 4) black mother/faith healing/stereotype of blacks—catchphrase added
Introduction: how is this modernist? Open-ended—here from humorous point of view; “judge for yourself”—the reader is involved in the “creation” of the story; not attempting for “realism”—undercutting realism
“curious expression”—Doctor’s face on delivery—how does the word “curious” encapsulate modernist aesthetic? Something amiss, not normal, outside predictable parameters of existence, odd, off
How is this different from a Poe short story?
Fitzgerald—and modernist writing in general—influence of film and visual arts on writing that becomes more visual than verbal—the example of the nurse dropping the basin
Mr Button meets Doctor, then first nurse, then second nurse who drops the basin—which builds suspense (all also highly visual—Doctor on curb, nurse behind desk, nurse in hall with basin) tell the story visually as opposed to explaining it verbally—shows total shock, almost stereotypical or stock reaction (different from Joyce, who might have described the basin, visualized if for us, here we have to visualize for ourselves)
At the time audiences might think of Fitzgerald—he’s leaving so much out. Relying on visual images to tell story, relying on dialogue to propel narrative
What to leave in and what to leave out. Less is More. Increase the audience active participation with the story (not passively receiving from all-knowing, all-telling narrator)
At birth Benjamin’s look of “puzzled question”
Mr Button wishes his son was black so that he could sell him at the slave market? Fitzgerald leaves it ambiguous—modernism
AMBIGUITY—unclear, indefinite, doubtful, uncertain of meaning
Purposeful ambiguity—aspect of Modernism writing—you would think this is just the opposite of what a writer would want to do; a writer’s job is to be clear and direct observer (in the realist tradition)
Modernists use ambiguity to undercut the notion of clear unequivocal meaning, and even the possibility of one literal absolute meaning—everything is relative
Fitzgerald doesn’t tell us that the father wants to sell the “child,” but implies it
The entire “reverse life pattern” of Benjamin (who “ages” from adult to child) undermines the notion of “aging” and even life itself as traditionally constructed—Benjamin is an impossibility (not like romantic fiction of Poe or gothic horror)
Another ambiguity—lack of mother in the story
Modernists play with the notion of what can we know, what is reality, is there an objective reality (“real world out there”) that we can all agree on—and should Art (literature, painting, music) try to represent that real world out there—can it? Is Art itself mimetic (imitative of “real life”)
How is Fitzgerald satirizing Baltimore society—and society at large. Society is about everybody being the same. Can’t handle individual difference (Modernist aims to represent the individual as opposed to the group-think).
ABSURDITY—lacking order/rationality, meaninglessness, no connection to “real life” (objective reality) – we all experience the world, as individuals, subjectively, like Benjamin Button, we’re all freaks, no one is ordinary despite the lengths people will go to be ordinary
Benjamin’s “quizzical eye”—sees absurdity of life/his situation
We try to force the world to meet our social constructions—Benjamin must be a baby and treated like one—society can’t handle the special cases; doesn’t want Benjamin stunting his growth smoking cigars
Benjamin “took life as he found it.” Modernist way—no preconceptions or preconstructions
Backward aging satirizing or making ridiculous all the “important” achievements of life
Try to come to terms with irreducible nature of reality with story; modernism is as much about the technique/assumptions of art as art itself; Modernism is a method of analyzing the process by which art is made; self-consciously reflective—the cubist painting of the mandolin player shows the subject from many perspectives (showing that one three-dimensional perspective of the detached artist is a “fiction”; but also showing how the illusion of “three-dimensionality” is created by using simple two-dimensional forms such as cube, sphere, etc.
Modernism reveals art in the art
Much the same way, Fitzgerald reveals the illusion or “fiction” of story (narrative structure, etc.): we take for granted that a story is chronological and mirrors clock-time as we know it—explodes the traditional narrative of Bildungsroman (growth of young man into adult)—a coming of age story in which the lead character develops from dependent child into independent young adult (learns to define him- or herself)
Benjamin Button turns the whole Bildungsroman on its head—modernist technique of taking traditional form and completely inverting or subverting it; Benjamin loses more of himself through each experience
Hildegarde: “But just think how it would be if every one else looked at things as you do--what would the world be like?" This is the POINT of modernist art
Benjamin becoming less and less a person, less and less a self (in the Western notion); in Western Culture we prize the notion of Self or Selfhood—we’re all different, we’re all unique individuals—hero worship—Fitzgerald seems to be subverting yet another aspect of traditional Western Culture: “the hero”
Benjamin is an anti-hero more than a hero:
1) Goes from football hero to nobody
2) San Juan hill—he gets shot
3) From father figure to “nephew”
4) /From lover to child90
5) What happens at the end of the story? Does he die? The self becomes completely unconstructed. BB loses language, identity and finally sensory perception (his life?).
The story ends with ambiguity. Is Benjamin a fetus, dead? Can he define “death”? Is “LIFE” something we socially construct as an idea in opposition to “DEATH”?
Undermines the notion of self, self-consciousness, reflection.
The message of the movie is the continuation, the power of the self to stand up to Nature, Fate, Destiny, etc. The movie is about the power through acceptance. Catchphrase: “You never know what’s coming.” Suggests a heroic attitude toward the uncertainty of life.
BB—the story—he never has the degree of self-awareness to understand the full implications of what is happening to him (like most of us in life who live like we are going to live forever).