The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a short story written by Scott Fitzgerald

in 1922, and included in his book Tales of the Jazz Age. Fitzgerald tells the story
of the son of Roger Button, who was born old and ages in revers. As Benjamin
grows younger he falls in love with a woman named Hildegarde with whom he
marries and has a son. Problems arise when Hildegarde continues to grow old
while Benjamin grows young, thing that make his own son hostil towards his
father thinking that he is growing younger on purpose.The story ends with
Benjamin entering first grade, kindergarten and finally dying. The author states
in his praface to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button , that his story was
inspired by a remark of Mark Twains, who said that it was a pity that the best
part of life came at the beginning and the worst at lifes end , so the story
attempts to make the story run backward in order to achieve youth at lifes
end, thus growing into the vitality and happiness of adolescence and ending life
without the burden of the past.Fitzgeralds story deals with the experience and
with the mutability of time (past and future), the present being the inclination
to exist in the period. Moreover, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a story
in which death does not seem to be the negative capstone of disillusionment
because time does not move in a normal way in the story. That being said
growing younger means growing physically younger, therefor, having no
memories of the time he was old implaying he does not have any
understanding of life.
Through this passage it is showed that Benjamins life ends in a state of
unawareness and with a sense of peace and fulfillment since he is not aware of
the burden of the time or memory. This story is a sad one because Benjamin
has to act an age he does not have, just like when he was old and he really
wanted just to stay with the other old people and talk because that was the
mind and tastehe was born with, but when he gets younger his mind and body

gets more active and he is content with playing with other kids, especially with
his nephew. Thinking that life can only be understood backwards but it must be
lived forward means that one can only make sense of the things that have
happened in the past, that one lived, in order to prevent further similar
mistakes and to improve ones forward because life involves one going into the
future, experiencing new things. This story has to be studied in order to get a
better perspective of life. Benjamin died peacefully, without the burden of the
past but the fact that he died without knowing about his family is true too. Also
it must be taken into consideration the quality of life. The fact that all his life he
needed to be someone else and act according to his physical age was not
something easy and not necessary for him as for his wife and son and before
that his parents. What is more, throughout his life Benjamin did not understand
his life backward and lived it forward; thing that made him move through life as
a stranger: he had to adjust to life according to physical, emotional, and
intellectual maturity. He is incapable to view himself in a self-consciousness
maner, moving through life without any memory, living in a perpetual present.