SOURCE: "Fable to Fantasy: The Short Fiction," in F. Scott Fitzgerald, Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1978, pp. 82-105

In the following excerpt, Gallo describes the destructive power of money as an important theme in the story.

In "Babylon Revisited" (December 1930; Post February 21, 1931; Taps at Reveille 1935), Fitzgerald draws on a biblical source for his title. The inhabitants of the Old Testament city of Babylon were notorious for their licentiousness. Many of the Jews—held captive in Babylon for seventy years—were seduced by the sinful allure of Babylon, and turned from the observance of the Mosaic law to the worship of Babylonian idols.

The setting of "Babylon Revisited" is Paris (considered by Fitzgerald a modern Babylon in those days of unrestrained revelry just before the American stock market crash in 1929).

Using a frame device, Fitzgerald begins and ends the story in the Ritz bar—a popular haunt of wealthy Americans...