Who Is F. Scott Fitzgerald's Babylon Revisited?

Babylon Revisited, a short story written by the author F. Scott Fitzgerald, was written in 1930, but was first published in 1931 in the Saturday Evening Post. The author, Fitzgerald, was known for his turbulent personal life (“F. Scott Fitzgerald”). Beginning in the 1920s, Fitzgerald embraced his new celebrity status by living a lifestyle that involved heavy partying (“F. Scott Fitzgerald”). Fitzgerald’s personal life was somewhat shown through Babylon Revisited. The majority of literature is typically influenced by the present circumstances at the time the text is written. This short story, Babylon Revisited, is heavily influenced by many of the historical events that we know today as the roaring 20s and then ultimately, the effects of the …show more content…
It was the deepest and longest-lasting economic downturn in the history of the Western industrialized world up to that time (“The Stock Market Crash of 1929”). The stock market crashed in 1929, a year before Fitzgerald wrote Babylon Revisited. So, what exactly was the Great Depression and how did it affect people? It was a result of the stock market crash, which occurred on October 29, 1929. “Black Tuesday hit Wall Street as investors traded some 16 million shared on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. Billions of dollars were lost, wiping out thousands of investors” (“The Stock Market Crash of 1929”). By the year of 1933, unemployment was approaching up to 30 percent of the workforce and nearly half of America’s banks had failed (“The Stock Market Crash of 1929”). By 1932, stocks were worth about only 20 percent of their value in the summer of 1929 (“The Stock Market Crash of 1929”). The majority of people suffered during this time period due to the overall economic failure. However, there were some people who made it through okay, like the character Charlie in Fitzgerald’s short