The Adaptable Educator’s Book Review – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (1922) is a deftly woven meditation on time, identity, and societal norms, encapsulated within the framework of an inverted life trajectory. Originally published in Collier’s Magazine, the novella stands as one of Fitzgerald’s most inventive explorations of temporality, playing with the modernist preoccupation with the fluidity of time while also critiquing the rigidity of social constructs. Though it may lack the grand tragedy of The Great Gatsby or the autobiographical depth of Tender Is the Night, Benjamin Button is no less incisive in its commentary on the human condition.

Reversing Time, Reinforcing Critique

The titular character, Benjamin Button, is born as a seventy-year-old man in 1860 and, rather than aging in the conventional manner, regresses into infancy by the time of his death. This unnatural reversal not only subverts biological order but also deconstructs societal expectations surrounding aging, wisdom, and personal growth. Fitzgerald leverages this peculiar premise to expose the absurdity of social conventions—how rigidly we define maturity and how we value individuals based on where they stand in the chronology of life rather than their intrinsic qualities.

The response of society to Benjamin’s condition is telling. His family’s immediate reaction is one of shame and embarrassment, particularly his father, who forces him into youthful pursuits inappropriate for his outward appearance. This theme recurs throughout the narrative: Benjamin’s physicality is at odds with social expectations, whether in academia, marriage, or war. Fitzgerald’s satire is sharpest when Benjamin, though intellectually and emotionally suited for adulthood, is infantilized by those who cannot accept his outward age. This irony underscores the central critique: age is a mere social construct, arbitrarily defining an individual’s capabilities and role.

Fitzgerald and the Aesthetics of Temporality

Fitzgerald, deeply influenced by modernist explorations of time (one sees echoes of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time and anticipations of Faulkner’s non-linear storytelling), manipulates chronology to emphasize its elasticity. Benjamin Buttonserves as a playful yet poignant counterpoint to traditional narratives of progress and decline. By inverting the aging process, Fitzgerald forces us to reconsider how we perceive growth and decay—does one become wiser through experience, or is wisdom merely a condition of context and expectation?

Furthermore, there is an undeniable existential undertone to Benjamin’s journey. In many ways, he is an outsider, navigating a world that refuses to accommodate him. As he grows younger, his sense of agency diminishes. The supposed joys of childhood become, for him, a slow erasure of memory and identity. Here, Fitzgerald foreshadows his later existential preoccupations—the idea that time is both an oppressive and indifferent force, robbing individuals of stability. Benjamin’s final moments, reduced to the unformed consciousness of infancy, serve as an eerie mirror to the oblivion that awaits us all.

A Satirical Allegory on Individualism and Conformity

One could argue that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is an allegory of the struggle between individualism and conformity. Benjamin, through no fault of his own, is an anomaly in a society that resents anomalies. His attempts to assimilate—joining the military, marrying, fathering a child—are met with resistance, mockery, or ultimate failure. Fitzgerald, ever the social critic, presents Benjamin as both tragic and absurd. His condition is less about the fantasy of reversed aging and more about the impossibility of existing outside societal norms without consequence.

In this sense, Fitzgerald’s novella prefigures existentialist literature, raising questions that Sartre or Camus might later address: If life is inherently absurd, how does one assert meaning within it? Benjamin, despite his unique existence, is ultimately unable to escape the same fate as any other mortal—death, albeit in reverse. Fitzgerald does not provide comforting answers; rather, he lays bare the inescapability of time’s march (or retreat).

A Narrative Both Playful and Profound

While The Curious Case of Benjamin Button has often been overshadowed by Fitzgerald’s longer works, its thematic resonance is undeniable. It is a masterstroke of speculative fiction that employs fantasy not as an end but as a means of philosophical inquiry. Fitzgerald’s prose, typically lush and evocative, is restrained here, allowing the irony and pathos of Benjamin’s plight to take center stage.

Far from being a mere whimsical tale, Benjamin Button is a critique of the artificiality of social constructs, an exploration of time’s tyranny, and a meditation on the fragility of identity. It is Fitzgerald at his most experimental, yet also at his most human. In reversing the course of a life, he forces us to confront our own—how we measure it, how we judge it, and ultimately, how we surrender to it.