UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MARA

AKADEMI PENGAJIAN BAHASA

ALS103 LITERATURE
ASSESSMENT: WRITTEN REPORT

SHORT STORY ANALYSIS

STUDENT NAME:
NUR AMNI MUSFIRAH

GROUP:
JLG1201B

LECTURER NAME:
MS. IRA SYAQIRA BINTI SUKIMIN

SUBMISSION DEADLINE:
WEEK 10 LECTURE
 The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

INTRODUCTION:
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald or known by his pen name, F. Scott Fitzgerald was an American
novelist, essayist, and short story writer who lived from September 24, 1896, until December
21, 1940. His works that portray the extravagance and flamboyance of the Jazz Age—a
phrase he popularized—are what made him most well-known. He produced 164 short stories,
four story collections, and four novels during his lifetime. Fitzgerald acquired critical acclaim
only after his death and is now regarded as one of the finest American authors of the 20th
century, despite only experiencing fleeting popularity and prosperity in the 1920s.

ELEMENTS OF THE SHORT STORY:

THEME:

The theme of the short story is acceptance and expectations. The Curious Case of Benjamin
Button illustrates how challenging it can be to deal with the expectations and presumptions of
others. This implies that Benjamin Button, who is born with a condition that makes him age
backward, is forced to act in a way that is always expected of him by others. For one, his
father wants him to portray an obedient firstborn son. The rest of society, however, expects
him to behave following his out-of-character physical attributes for his true age. Benjamin
finds himself with very little room to live the way he desires, at least without disappointing
specific individuals in his life, as he tries to balance these various expectations. No matter
what he accomplishes, it seems like he will inevitably fall short of some goals while still
succeeding in others.

The narrative suggests that people shouldn't put too much emphasis on what other people
expect of them because doing so is ultimately pointless by exposing this catch-22. Instead,
people should lead independent lives. Benjamin has been under pressure to live up to his
father's expectations since the beginning of his life. Before Benjamin even sees his father, he
already has these expectations. As he travels to the hospital to visit Benjamin for the first
time, Mr Button daydreams about his future, anticipating that his kid may one day attend
Yale University (just like Mr Button himself). Given that his father already has these goals
for his son, Benjamin will undoubtedly face challenges in trying to win over his father given
his rare reverse-ageing condition.
But Benjamin's issue isn't just that his father has high expectations for him; rather, Mr
Button's expectations essentially ignore reality since he expects Benjamin to behave in ways
that are wholly inconsistent with who he is. Since Benjamin has a physical and mental
ailment, he; not only seems to be an elderly man but also acts and feels like one. He is thus
forced to be someone he is not since his father expects him to behave like a young boy. This
is the situation when Benjamin is told to "play with it" by Mr Button after he brings home a
baby rattle, which seems absurd given that Benjamin actually wants to lounge about cigarette
smoking and encyclopaedic reading. Later, Mr Button forces Benjamin to play with kids his
own (numerical) age, and when Benjamin one day breaks a window unintentionally, his
father is delighted since he views this as typical boy behaviour. Benjamin then damages
something on purpose every day, but he only does this because it's "expected of him." The
desire to satisfy his father is evident from this, but doing so would necessitate giving up the
life that Benjamin wishes to live.

Benjamin appears happiest on the rare occasions when he can just exist on his terms because
juggling numerous sets of expectations at once is so challenging. This occurs in the middle of
his life when his appearance roughly corresponds to his true age, a time when no one has
undue expectations of him. Unfortunately, this only lasts for a short while. The fact that he
gradually loses his maturity implies that he increasingly fails to be the person that his wife,
Hildegarde, expected him to be because she married him due to his maturity. As a result, their
marriage steadily disintegrates, and yet another one of Benjamin's connections is harmed by
his failure to fulfil their expectations.

Benjamin doesn't reclaim the level of carefree bliss he experienced in the middle of his life
when everyone simply accepted him for who he was until he is a very small child. This is due
to the fact that once he starts acting and looking like a toddler, no one tries to make him into
anything other than a simple child. He quits striving to be something he is not. And he doesn't
mind because he isn't even aware that he is actually fairly old. A heartbreaking example of
how fruitless it is to strive to live up to society's various expectations is that this appears to be
the happiest time of Benjamin's life. This is an endeavour that is at best unattainable and
worst harmful to a person's happiness.
NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES:

SUSPENSE:

At the beginning of the story, there is an element of suspense during Roger Button was
waiting for his baby. The way the author builds up the suspense on how a father feels about
welcoming his firstborn child is very expressive and detailed. Based on the dialogue Mr
Button said to Doctor Keene, “What happened?”, “What was it?”, “How is she?”, “A boy?”,
and “Who is it?”, we know how anxious he was about what might happen to his wife and his
baby.

The suspense builds up more when Doctor Keene reacts with uneasiness when Mr Button
asked him about the baby and it makes me curious about why Doctor Keene was irritated
with him. There must be something that happened since Doctor Keene stated that a case like
this will ruin his reputation. Not only that he was furious with Mr Button, but he also said that
he doesn’t want to see Mr Button or any of his relatives ever again and then he said goodbye.

A few moments later he enters the hospital and meets a nurse at the counter. The nurse
jumped from her chair the moment Mr Button introduce himself. The nurse quickly pointed
upstairs and Mr Button nervously walked up the stairs. That is where he met the second nurse
who was holding a basin, and as soon as he introduce himself the basin suddenly slipped
from the nurse’s hand and it fall downstairs; indicating that the nurse too was startled.

All of these details make me as a reader on edge and keep getting curious about what
happened to Mr Button’s baby until it makes everyone seems surprised. In my opinion, the
author succeeds in using suspense as the exposition of the story as it makes the reader
intrigued with the story.
FLASHFORWARD:

The short story used several flashforwards to pinpoint the timeline of Benjamin Button’s life.
For example, at the beginning of the story, the author described Benjamin’s life from he was
born until he was 5 years old. Then the author flashforward to when Benjamin was 12 years
old. That is when the story revealed that Benjamin’s physical form begins to change. A
certain part of his white hair had slowly changed. The wrinkles on his face have been less
visible and his skin looks much healthier and firmer.

The second flashforward is right after the revealed. The story moved on to when Benjamin
was 18 years old. Benjamin was trying to apply for college but got turned down because of
his facial appearance. The registrar did not believe him when he said that he was a freshman
that wanted to register. At that time Benjamin looks old because the registrar thought that
Benjamin was his father, Mr Button. Eventually, the registrar kicked him out as though he
thought that Benjamin was fooling around when he told him his age.

The next flashforward is when Benjamin found the love of his life which is when he is 20
years old. It was at a dance party where he met Hildegarde Moncrief, the daughter of General
Moncrief. Hildegarde is the kind of woman who prefers old, mature men rather than young
childlike men. That was the moment when Benjamin fall in love with her

Another flashforward is 6 months after they met. This time they got engaged and lots of
rumours got spread. The rumours about Hildegarde, a 20 years old woman who is about to
get married to a man in his 50s. Hildegarde’s father General Moncrief was not pleased by this
marriage.

Moving on to the next flashforward, and in my opinion, the golden part of Benjamin’s life
because of his physical appearance has become more gentlemanly looking. Everybody was
surprised that he seems to grow younger every year. Not only that, their family fortune got
doubled thanks to the younger member of the firm. In the year 1898, Benjamin got into the
military. With the help of his business influence, he easily got promoted from captain to
lieutenant colonel. He did get injured during the war but he received a medal.

The last flashforward is when Benjamin was in his final 10 years before he died in a baby
physical form. Benjamin’s son, Roscoe was too busy with the family business so he hired a
nurse to take care of both his father and his son. Benjamin slowly begins to act more childlike
and behave like a child usually behaves. Roscoe took him to kindergarten as it seem the right
thing to do. He keeps getting younger and younger and his physical form has become like a
child. The saddening part is when Benjamin slowly forgets his memories as if he was having
dementia. Finally, Benjamin was not able to speak any longer as though he has looks like a
baby, an actual normal-looking baby. Benjamin died in his white crib, just like when he was
born
 References

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (short story). (2022, November 9). In Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Curious_Case_of_Benjamin_Button_(short_story)

LitCharts, L. (n.d.). Expectations and acceptance theme analysis. LitCharts. Retrieved

December 20, 2022, from https://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-curious-case-of-benjamin-
button/themes/expectations-and-acceptance