“I Can’t Tell You Exactly Who I am …”: The Creation of Childhood and Adulthood in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Short Story The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Abstract

This article provides some theoretical impulses for contemporary debates about childhood. Its major part consists of a discussion of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story The curious case of Benjamin Button. It is shown that the Button case not only puts into question common ideas of human development. Rather, it also gives insights into what it requires to live one’s life in accordance with the socially and culturally established differentiation between children and adults. It is argued that the crucial characteristic of the development of Benjamin Button’s life is to learn to adapt to other people’s expectations by means of performing in special ways, if necessary in neglect of his feelings and needs. Finally, it is suggested that any theoretical approach to childhood is intimately connected to the ways in which we refer to and conceive of adulthood. Thus, if we want to address political and ethical questions in the terrain of childhood, the study of the meanings and significations of ‘adulthood’ is indispensable.