SOURCE: "Guilt and Retribution in 'Babylon Revisited'," in Fitzgerald/Hemingway Annual 1973, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli and C. E. Frazer Clark, Jr., Microcard Editions Books, 1974, pp. 155-64.

In the following essay, Toor argues that Charlie Wales is trapped between self-justification and self-recrimination.

Roy R. Male's perceptive article on "Babylon Revisited" goes far in clearing up many of the unresolved problems that have recently been discussed in relation to the story ["'Babylon Revisited': The Story of the Exile's Return," Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 2, 1965]. Male has pointed out, as James Harrison had shown in an earlier note, that Charlie Wales is in a sense responsible for the appearance of Duncan and Lorraine at the Peters' house at precisely the wrong moment [Harrison, "Fitzgerald's "'Babylon Revisited'," Explicator, Vol. 16, January 1958]. Male has further called into serious question the general interpretation of the story, most specifically Seymour Gross' contention that Charlie has...