Filip Krajnovi Dr.sc.Sanja Runti, doc./Mr.sc.

Ljubica Matek Introduction to Fantastic literature 24th April, 2012

The Peculiar Cases of Benjamin Button

Having read the short tale and seen the movie adaptation, both entitled The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, one sees that apart from the bizarre idea of a mans unnatural aging they are pretty much completely different stories. F. Scott Fitzgerald brings us an entertaining, comedic tale unlike director David Fincher who saw it fit to convert it into a love story with a profound outlook on life and death. The goal of this paper is to analyze and compare the two versions in terms of their theme and setting. Time and more specifically chronological order of events play a very important role in both stories, which is to be expected as the main concept consists of a time reversal and aging. If we are to better understand the mindset of the main character in the tale or guess his age in the movie, it is necessary to pay attention to this aspect of the setting. The stories play out in different timeframes. The tale starts in 1860 and ends around 1930 as the last specific year mentioned is 1920 when Benjamin is depicted as a ten-year-old. The movie, however, begins in the year the First World War had ended in 1918 and continues up to the very beginning of the 21th century. There is a difference in Benjamins birthplace as the big screen Benjamin was born in New Orleans and Fitzgeralds in Baltimore but that seems to

hold little relevance. It is important to mention that they both lived in a timeframe of great wars and had a role in them as well. Their social backgrounds are essentially the same since they both come from prominent families. Finchers Benjamin is the son of a successful button maker while Fitzgeralds is the child born into a family that held an enviable position, both social and financial, in Antebellum Baltimore .However, the setting is not as similar as it would seem due to the fact that in the movie adaptation, Benjamin is adopted into a retirement home by a young black woman which deprives him of the luxury of social security while growing up. Even though Fitzgeralds Benjamin is accepted (barely) by his well off parents he is not accepted by society because unlike his counterpart he is born as an old man and not as an old man trapped in a babys form. The retirement home actually provides a shelter for Benjamin and allows him to blend in. As stated earlier, these two stories do have a common concept but somewhat differ thematically. Fitzgerald emphasizes the struggle for acceptance and necessity to adopt of such a peculiar individual and does so while satirically describing events in Benjamins life like his fathers idea to call him Methuselah when he first met Benjamin. He also ridicules society and its inability to bend the norms. Fitzgerald conveys a message that even a case of reverse aging does not lessen the fact that all people go through the more or less difficult stages of life and cope accordingly. Fincher on the other hand deals more with the subjects of growing up, learning, compassion, faith and accepting mortality. His Benjamin apart from his father abandoning him doesnt have to deal as much with mistreatment and wrestles with his own existence and unparallel life instead. Fincher is not solely centered on Benjamins life and pays more attention to the growth of other characters as well which is important to mention because being intertwined with such a fantastic persona makes them face their own mortality, especially in the case of Benjamins wife Daisy. Death is Finchers main motif,

from the retirement home Benjamin was accepted in, his father and stepmother dying, the death of his tugboat crew to his own demise as an infant in the grasp of his beloved wife. Finally it can be said that both achieved a bewildering effect and even though their setting, theme and characters are different they both managed to express the inevitability of not only death but existing and the importance of acceptance. The movie certainly has more depth as more details are introduced but then again it is a love story whereas the tale is more realistic in terms of a larger set of emotions shown by Benjamin Button.