This is a story about Benjamin Button, an infant who is born as a 70-year-old man and
ages in reverse.
Set near the time of the Civil War, when Benjamin is born, his father and mother have a hard
time accepting his condition, forcing Benjamin to act his literal age.
However, Benjamin acts and thinks like an older man, wanting to dress in a suit and
smoke a cigar.
After failing to integrate into school, eventually Benjamin begins to notice that he is looking
younger.
His skin is tightening up and his energy level is increasing.
Soon, Benjamin and his father, almost similar in appearance in terms of age, attend a party
and he is introduced to a young woman named Hildegarde.
The couple soon marries despite Benjamin looking nearly twenty years older than Hildegarde.
After fathering a child, Benjamin continues to grow younger.
He begins to notice that his interests in the party lifestyle are growing, while his
interest in his wife is decreasing.
After serving in the army, Benjamin enters college and graduates from Harvard.
Meanwhile, his son, Roscoe, has inherited the family hardware business.
However, even Roscoe is embarrassed to be seen with Benjamin because of how young he
looks.
And in the end, after Benjamin attends kindergarten with his own grandchild, he continues to become
younger and younger until his mind starts to blank out, resetting back to an infantile
status.
This story takes an interesting look at a life in reverse, but really magnifies the
similarities between the polar ends of a life - the elder and infant years.
In both extremes, individuals are highly dependent on extra care.
Behind all of the fantasy, this story also comments on the loneliness of being in a family.
Benjamin is surrounded by a "family", albeit a distant and apathetic family, yet the narrator
of this story tends to place Benjamin alone.
He is often the only one looking out for himself.
Even in relationships when we would expect some support, like from his parents, wife,
or child, he is still the primary source for his own well-being.
The ending scene, where Benjamin's mind begins to lose consciousness, is quite sad.
He loses memory of his entire life and his world becomes only his crib and nurse.
This juxtaposition of life's most polar extremes, birth and death, works wonders at the end.
We are left with a child, who represents birth and new beginnings, while also being left
with a literal 70-year-old man who is losing his memories and entering death.
And so it seems that in the course of a natural life, we enter and leave with nothing, no
memories at all.