Near the beginning of the story, as Roger Button imagines the embarrassing interactions he could have with people when they find out he has a 70-year-old newborn son, he briefly alludes to the slave trade:
People would stop to speak to him, and what was he going to say? He would have to introduce this—this septuagenarian: “This is my son, born early this morning.” And then the old man would gather his blanket around him and they would plod on, past the bustling stores, the slave market—for a dark instant Mr. Button wished passionately that his son was black—past the luxurious houses of the residential district, past the home for the aged....
Here Roger thinks about passing the “slave market” on his way home from the hospital and, “for a dark instant,” he “wished passionately that his son was black.” Because the story is set just before the Civil War, the slave trade was still in effect in the United States. The types of “slave markets” that Roger references were common in Baltimore as enslaved people were forcibly brought to the city via the harbor before ending up in the Southern states.
Roger’s subconscious racist desire for his son to be Black so that he could sell him into slavery illustrates the intensity of his dread over losing his reputation in elite Baltimore society. He prizes his social status so much that he would willingly force his child into an oppressive and violent institution.
After Benjamin is born a 70-year-old man—to the shock of his parents and the hospital staff—his father Roger Button takes him home. On their way home, as they discuss how Roger will refer to Benjamin, Roger makes a biblical allusion, as seen in the following passage:
His son took the hand trustingly. “What are you going to call me, dad?” he quavered as they walked from the nursery—“just ‘baby’ for a while? till you think of a better name?” Mr. Button grunted.
“I don’t know,” he answered harshly. “I think we’ll call you Methuselah.”
Roger says “harshly” that he and his wife will refer to Benjamin as “Methuselah,” an allusion to the oldest character in the Bible. (In Genesis, he is recorded as having lived for 969 years.) This is clearly an example of verbal irony as Roger does not actually plan on calling his son that—he is making a sarcastic joke from a place of anger and confusion. He was expecting a normal baby and now feels burdened by having a 70-year-old newborn, as it will negatively affect his reputation. Roger is used to being a well-respected member of upper-class Baltimore society and is frustrated that Benjamin is jeopardizing his status.
This moment also shows how Roger is not a very supportive or caring parent. Benjamin’s earnest question—“What are you going to call me, dad?”—along with his “quavering” voice shows how vulnerable he is. That Roger responds with a harsh comment demonstrates that he cares more about his reputation than his child.
Throughout the beginning of the story—which is set in the year 1860—Fitzgerald includes allusions to the Civil War, such as the following:
The sensation created in Baltimore was, at first, prodigious. What the mishap would have cost the Buttons and their kinsfolk socially cannot be determined, for the outbreak of the Civil War drew the city’s attention to other things.
Here the narrator explains how “the sensation” of Benjamin’s reverse aging condition was overshadowed by “the outbreak of the Civil War” (in 1861). The Civil War comes up again later in the story when, around 1890, an older Benjamin gives his father-in-law General Moncrief money “to bring out his ‘History of the Civil War’ in twenty volumes, which had been refused by nine prominent publishers.”
These allusions remind readers that this story is situated in a time of immense sociopolitical change for the United States. While Benjamin is aging backwards, society is moving forwards—the Civil War officially ended slavery, and Black Americans were being regarded as full citizens for the first time, even though equality had a long way to go. Part of the melancholic mood at the end of the story is the fact that Benjamin is—and will be—missing out on experiencing a more accepting American society.
