In the introductory notes to the story, Fitzgerald says that Mark Twain inspired this story of life lived backwards.
An Anachronistic Beginning
The narrator of the story begins by stating that until recently, the proper thing to do was to give birth to children at home. However, in recent years people have begun to give birth to their children in hospitals. The narrator suggests that perhaps the fact that the son of Mr. and Mrs. Roger Button were fifty years ahead of their time and gave birth at a hospital encouraged their son’s ‘anachronistic life.’
Social Status
Roger Button was the head of a socially elite family and the president of Roger Button & Co., Wholesale Hardware. One September, he goes to the hospital to see his newborn. Instead, he finds an angry Dr Keene who reprimands him for his behavior saying that this case will ruin him. Similarly upset people confront Roger Button as he walks through the hospital inquiring after his child.
The Unexpected
When Mr. Button finally sees his son he is astonished to see an old man of about seventy crammed into a baby crib. He is told that this old man is his son. Mr. Button flies into a rage, thinking the hospital is playing a joke on him. The nurse assures him that it is not a joke and insists that Mr. Button take his son home.
Conformity
Mr. Button takes his son home and immediately tries to make the old man conform to his ideas of a firstborn son. At first, Mr. Button considers naming him Methuselah but settles on Benjamin. He has customized children’s suits made for the old man, gives him rattles to play with, and dyes his hair.
As Benjamin grows older, his father arranges play dates for him and enrolls him in kindergarten. When left to his own devices, Benjamin prefers to read encyclopedias, smoke cigars, and hang out with his grandfather.
Growth or the Lack of Growth
Around the age of twelve, Benjamin realizes that he is becoming younger. As the years, pass his gray hair thickens and darkens, his limbs straighten and become more muscular, and his voice deepens. He asks his father to allow him to wear long pants and is given the privilege in exchange for giving up his cane and spectacles.
By the age of eighteen, Benjamin’s appearance is that of a fifty-year-old and so his father sends him to his alma mater, Yale. On the day he is to arrange his schedule, Benjamin runs out of brown hair dye. When Benjamin tries to explain that he is the student and not the father of a student, he is dismissed from college.
Benjamin is His Father’s Contemporary
When Benjamin turns twenty, he looks like a brother his fifty-year-old father. He joins his father’s business and starts attending social events. Soon he meets a twenty year old named Hildegarde whom he marries, causing a tremendous scandal due to the apparent age difference of thirty years.
Benjamin is His Wife’s Contemporary
As Benjamin continues to grow more youthful, he makes a success of his father’s business and finds that he loves society. However, Hildegarde has lost the bloom of youth, is thirty-five years old, and is becoming sedentary. They have a fourteen-year-old son name Roscoe.
Benjamin’s restless spirit causes him to join the army and he fights in the Spanish American War. When he returns, he finds that his wife is forty while he appears to be thirty.
An Overturned Belief
Benjamin always believed that when his apparent age and real age were equivalent the “grotesque phenomenon” would end. It doesn’t and he finds his destiny both awful and incredible. Hildegarde is angry with him for not halting his inverse aging.
Benjamin is His Son’s Contemporary
As he grows younger, Benjamin’s thirst for activity increased. When his son graduates from Harvard, people often mistake them for one another, which amuses Benjamin and helps him forget the fear he felt when he first realized that the inverse progression of his life wasn’t going to stop. He turns the business over to his son.
A few years later, Benjamin leaves to attend Harvard. He plays football and is a hero during his freshman year. However, by the time he is a senior he is so slight he doesn’t make the team and people often mistake him for a sixteen-year-old prodigy.
The Teenage Years
After college Benjamin returns home to live with his son because Hildegarde has moved to Italy. Benjamin loses interest in the college set and thinks that perhaps he should attend prep school so he approaches his son asking for help to make his entrance. Roscoe says that he won’t and tells his father to quit this nonsense of growing younger and to please refer to him as Uncle.
Benjamin discovers that he no longer needs to shave. In fact, when he first returned home, Roscoe suggested that he wear glasses and glue whiskers on his face in order to look older.
When WWI started, Benjamin receives a letter with a commission to join as a brigadier-general. Benjamin goes to Camp Mosby, where the mortified Roscoe has to retrieve the child masquerading as a general.
Benjamin is His Grandson’s Contemporary
Roscoe has his first child when Benjamin is sixty. Five years later, Benjamin and his grandson attend kindergarten, together. When his grandson goes to the first grade, Benjamin stays in kindergarten for another year. But when the third year of kindergarten arrives, Benjamin is too little and too immature and is sent home to stay with his nurse, Nana.
Benjamin continues to become younger and younger until he reaches a point where all is dark and everything fades out of his mind.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Scribner. 2007. ISBN-10: 1416556052, ISBN-13: 9781416556053
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