Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald Lesson Plan

What stylistic and narrative techniques does Fitzgerald use to introduce “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”? How does this impact how we read the story?

As with “The Jelly-Bean,” “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” begins with a first-person narrator framing the story. The narrator says that most babies in 1860 were still born at home, and so the fact that Benjamin was born in a hospital was unusual and “fifty years ahead of style.” Looking back after having read the story, it is not insignificant that the Buttons are introduced as having been ahead of their time, just as their son will literally be. The narrator then writes, “whether this anachronism had any bearing...