SOURCE: "'Babylon Revisited': A Story of the Exile's Return," in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 2, No. 3, Spring, 1965, pp. 270-77.

In the following essay, Male contends that Charlie Wales has not reformed because he is still torn between his former life and his present one.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Babylon Revisited," although widely reprinted, has not produced many commentaries. James Frake and Isadore Traschen give a brief explication in their text on short fiction [Short Fiction, 1959], Arthur Mizener refers to the story a number of times in his biography [The Far Side of Paradise, 1949], and Seymour Gross has recently offered a full-length analysis [in "Fitzgerald's 'Babylon Revisited'," College English, Vol. XXV, November 1963]. But compared to, say, "Rappaccini's Daughter," or "The Turn of the Screw," or "The Bear," Fitzgerald's story seems to have provoked almost no concern—mainly, I suppose, because its meaning is clear. It has some symbols, but they...