Fitzgerald’s story is realistic compared to the romance in the film. I wasn’t as sad to finish the book than the film though. Studying journalism has allowed to see more of the realistic society. It’s not perfect. People always judge by the cover, though they say they don’t. This is what exactly happened in both the books and film.
Since two versions took place in different time of the society, there were a lot of potential social and historic issues to be discussed. For instance, in the film, Benjamin was born in 1918 when World War I ended in a wealthy and socially high ranked family. He was left at a senior home and raised by an African American nurse? Could this be racist that Thomas Button disliked his child so much that he left him to Queenie?
In late 1800s and early 1900s when Benjamin was growing up, it was a society where people outweighed others’ opinions on them and couldn’t care less for who they really were and what they truly enjoyed. Benjamin and Hildegrade’s romance ended as her unhappiness with his backward growth. Well, Benjamin in the book didn’t have Daisy from the film, after all.
The message from the book I received was that Benjamin was quite a strong character. After one abandoned him, he moved on to another. His discontent drove him to join the army. After the army, he still wasn’t happy. He took on Golf and played very well. He went to Harvard.
Both version reminded me of a line from Prime, a romance comedy: