Introductory Note to the Reader      Time is one of those abstract concepts that has bewildered me ever since I became conscious of what it means, or what I have been taught to believe it means, within my own cultural understanding of existence. We measure it, organize our lives around it, and constantly complain about not having enough of it. Yet, despite its familiarity, I have often felt trapped both by time and within it. Like Bernardo Soares in fragment 350 of Fernando Pessoa's Livro do Desassossego, I find myself wondering whether we truly understand something that governs practically every aspect of our existence.      Whenever I think about Einstein's theories of relativity and the curvature of spacetime, my bewilderment only deepens. If time is not as absolute as we ordinarily imagine, what does that mean for our brief existence? And what, if anything, awaits us when our allotted lifespan comes to an end? Would someone like Carl Sagan have simply reminded me that our consciousness ends with our biological existence, that death is the final chapter, and that there is nothing beyond it? Perhaps. Yet I cannot help wondering whether our scientific understanding of time can ever fully satisfy our existential questions about it.      This is why Soares's reflections resonated so profoundly with me. His uncertainty felt strangely familiar, almost as though he were articulating questions I had carried silently for years. Reading this fragment did not provide answers. Instead, it reminded me that literature sometimes accomplishes something equally valuable: it gives language to the uncertainties we have never quite managed to express. This essay emerges from that recognition, from my encounter with Soares's temporal disquiet, and from my own persistent inability to reconcile the time we measure with the time we experience. Jonathan Acuña Solano

Living in the Interval: Time, Consciousness, and the Restless Self in Bernardo Soares

	Abstract This essay examines the philosophical and existential dimensions of time in fragment 350 of Fernando Pessoa's Livro do Desassossego, narrated through his semi-heteronym Bernardo Soares. Moving beyond the conventional understanding of time as chronological progression, the analysis explores how Soares questions the reliability of clocks, emotions, dreams, and memory as instruments for comprehending temporal experience. Drawing on Henri Bergson's concept of duration, Martin Heidegger's existential temporality, Paul Ricoeur's relationship between time and narrative, and Walter Benjamin's understanding of historical consciousness, the essay argues that Soares experiences time as an unstable construction of consciousness rather than a measurable continuum. Particular attention is given to the impossibility of fully inhabiting the present, the reconstruction of the past through memory, and the paradoxical function of writing as an attempt to preserve experiences already lost to time. Ultimately, the essay proposes that desassossego is not merely an emotional condition but a fundamentally temporal predicament: the awareness of existence continually slipping away even as it is being lived. Through Soares's reflections, Pessoa invites readers to reconsider the relationship between time, identity, mortality, and the unsettling experience of being conscious of one's own existence.	Keywords: Fernando Pessoa, Bernardo Soares, Time, Consciousness, Memory, Temporality, Existentialism, Desassossego
	Resumen Este ensayo examina las dimensiones filosóficas y existenciales del tiempo en el fragmento 350 del Livro do Desassossego, de Fernando Pessoa, narrado por su semiheterónimo Bernardo Soares. Más allá de la concepción convencional del tiempo como una progresión cronológica, el análisis explora cómo Soares cuestiona la fiabilidad de los relojes, las emociones, los sueños y la memoria como instrumentos para comprender la experiencia temporal. A partir del concepto de duración de Henri Bergson, la temporalidad existencial de Martin Heidegger, la relación entre tiempo y narración de Paul Ricoeur y la concepción de la conciencia histórica de Walter Benjamin, se sostiene que Soares experimenta el tiempo como una construcción inestable de la conciencia, más que como una sucesión mensurable. Se presta especial atención a la imposibilidad de habitar plenamente el presente, la reconstrucción del pasado mediante la memoria y la función paradójica de la escritura como intento de preservar experiencias que el tiempo ya ha transformado en recuerdos. Finalmente, el ensayo propone que el desassossego no constituye únicamente una condición emocional, sino también un conflicto esencialmente temporal: la conciencia de que la existencia se desvanece incluso mientras la vivimos. A través de las reflexiones de Soares, Pessoa invita al lector a reconsiderar las relaciones entre el tiempo, la identidad, la mortalidad y la inquietante experiencia de ser consciente de la propia existencia.
	Resumo Este ensaio examina as dimensões filosóficas e existenciais do tempo no fragmento 350 do Livro do Desassossego, de Fernando Pessoa, narrado pelo seu semi-heterónimo Bernardo Soares. Ultrapassando a compreensão convencional do tempo como uma progressão cronológica, a análise explora a forma como Soares questiona a fiabilidade dos relógios, das emoções, dos sonhos e da memória enquanto instrumentos para compreender a experiência temporal. A partir do conceito de duração de Henri Bergson, da temporalidade existencial de Martin Heidegger, da relação entre tempo e narrativa de Paul Ricoeur e da conceção da consciência histórica de Walter Benjamin, o ensaio argumenta que Soares experiencia o tempo como uma construção instável da consciência, e não como uma sucessão mensurável. Dá-se especial atenção à impossibilidade de habitar plenamente o presente, à reconstrução do passado através da memória e à função paradoxal da escrita enquanto tentativa de preservar experiências que o tempo já transformou em recordações. Por fim, propõe-se que o desassossego não constitui apenas uma condição emocional, mas também um conflito fundamentalmente temporal: a consciência de que a existência se desvanece enquanto está a ser vivida. Através das reflexões de Soares, Pessoa convida o leitor a reconsiderar as relações entre o tempo, a identidade, a mortalidade e a inquietante experiência de estar consciente da própria existência.

 

	The mystery of time		The fragility of existence
	“What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.” — Saint Augustine, Confessions, Book XI, Chapter 14 (trans. J. G. Pilkington, 1886)		“Our little life Is rounded with a sleep.” — William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act IV, Scene 1

 

“Não sei o que é o tempo.”

There are sentences that seem to open a philosophical argument, and there are others that quietly dismantle the possibility of having one. Bernardo Soares's opening declaration in fragment 350 of O Livro do Desassossego  by Fernando Pessoa (n.d.) belongs to the second category: “Não sei o que é o tempo.” It sounds deceptively simple. After all, time is one of the most familiar structures of human existence. We measure it with clocks, calendars, anniversaries, schedules, birthdays, historical periods, and memories. We know when something happened, how long it lasted, and whether it belongs to yesterday, today, or tomorrow. Yet Soares's statement immediately destabilizes this apparently secure knowledge. He does not ask how time works. He does not ask whether time is objective or subjective. He begins from a much more unsettling position: he does not know what time is at all.

This uncertainty is characteristic of Soares's consciousness. Throughout O Livro do Desassossego, experience rarely arrives as something stable that can simply be lived and recorded. Experience becomes thought, thought becomes self-observation, self-observation becomes doubt, and doubt becomes writing. In fragment 350, this process is applied to time itself. The result is not a conventional philosophical theory of temporality but something perhaps more revealing: a phenomenology of temporal disquiet. Soares discovers that every ordinary way of measuring time fails to correspond adequately to the way time is actually experienced. The clock is false; emotion is false; dreams are false; memory rearranges the past into “níveis e planos absurdos.”

What emerges from the fragment is therefore a radical proposition: time does not exist for Soares as a neutral sequence through which consciousness travels. Time exists as something consciousness continually reconstructs. The past, present, and future do not occupy three separate compartments. They penetrate one another. Memory can make childhood more immediate than yesterday; dreams can accelerate or prolong experience; anticipation can give reality to something that has not yet occurred. The present itself becomes difficult to locate. Bernardo Soares, consequently, does not simply have a problem with time. He has a problem with the present.

The clock and the fiction of measurable time

The first target of Soares's meditation is perhaps the most obvious representation of time: the clock. He writes the following: “A do relógio sei que é falsa: divide o tempo espacialmente, por fora.” The sentence is remarkable because of the verb divide. The clock does not merely measure time; it divides it. And, more importantly, it divides it spatially. Minutes and hours become units that can be visualized almost as objects arranged beside one another.

This is precisely the problem that Henri Bergson (1910) identified in his distinction between measurable time and durée. Bergson (1910) argued that consciousness does not experience time as a collection of discrete units. Lived duration is qualitative rather than quantitative: conscious states interpenetrate rather than simply succeeding one another.

Bernardo Soares seems to intuitively arrive at a similar distinction, although his conclusion is more pessimistic. The clock gives us an external order, but it cannot tell us what an hour feels like. Ten minutes spent waiting can become enormous; an entire afternoon can disappear almost without leaving a trace. The clock says that two hours are equivalent. Consciousness knows that they are not.

The problem, therefore, is not that clocks are inaccurate. The clock is accurate precisely about the wrong thing. It accurately measures standardized intervals, but those intervals do not necessarily correspond to lived experience. This distinction allows us to reconsider one of the fundamental tensions in Desassossego. Soares lives in a world governed by external time: work has schedules, commerce has hours, streets have routines, days begin and end. As a bookkeeper, he inhabits a world of measurable units, accounts, transactions, and regularity. Yet his inner existence continually escapes those measurements.

The irony is exquisite. The man who works with numbers discovers that the most fundamental number cannot measure his existence.

When emotion fails too

But Soares does not simply replace clock time with psychological time. He immediately distrusts that alternative as well: “A das emoções sei também que é falsa: divide, não o tempo, mas a sensação dele.”  And this is an important qualification. One might initially imagine that if chronological time is inadequate, subjective time will solve the problem. Perhaps time is simply whatever the individual feels it to be. But Bernardo Soares refuses even this consolation.

Emotion does not reveal time. Emotion reveals only our sensation of time. The distinction is subtle but crucial. There is perhaps a temporal reality, but every attempt to grasp it is mediated by consciousness. We never encounter "pure time." We encounter waiting, boredom, nostalgia, anxiety, pleasure, anticipation, fatigue, memory, and desire.

In other words: We do not experience time directly. We experience ourselves being affected by time, or by what we take to be time. This makes Soares's meditation surprisingly close to phenomenology. The question is no longer “What is time objectively?” but “How does temporality appear within consciousness?” And the answer is unsettling: it never appears in a stable form.

Dreams: the collapse of temporal measurement

The third temporal system Bernardo Soares examines is even more fascinating: “A dos sonhos é errada; neles roçamos o tempo, uma vez prolongadamente, outra vez depressa...” Based on this idea, it can be stated that dreams expose the instability of chronological time because they can compress, expand, distort, and rearrange experience. That is, a dream lasting seconds may seem to contain hours. A brief dream sequence may feel like an entire biography. Conversely, hours of sleep can disappear into what seems like an instant.

The dream therefore provides Soares with evidence that temporal experience cannot be reduced to chronological succession. But the readers must notice his language: in dreams, “roçamos o tempo”. This can be translated into English as “We merely brush against time.” And that expression deserves attention. Soares does not say that in dreams we finally understand time. Quite the opposite. The dream brings us close to something whose nature remains inaccessible. We touch the mystery without possessing it.

This may be the fundamental structure of the entire fragment: approach without possession. The clock gives us measurement but not time itself. Then emotion gives us sensation but not time itself. On the other hand, dreams bring us close to time but do not reveal its nature. Therefore, memory reorganizes it but cannot explain it. And the more Soares thinks about time, the less certain he becomes that he has actually encountered it. And this is where philosophy becomes indistinguishable from desassossego (being disquiet).

Time as a frame

The most audacious proposition in the fragment arrives next: “Julgo, às vezes, que tudo é falso, e que o tempo não é mais do que uma moldura para enquadrar o que lhe é estranho.” Here Bernardo Soares reverses the usual relationship between time and experience. We normally imagine experience as occurring inside time. Soares proposes that perhaps time is simply a frame imposed upon something that is fundamentally foreign to it.

The metaphor of the frame is extraordinary because it transforms time from a container into an interpretive device. A painting exists independently of its frame, yet the frame determines how we encounter it. Similarly, perhaps experience exists independently of the chronological structure we impose upon it. Time would therefore be less like a river carrying us forward and more like the border of a picture.

But what is outside the frame? Soares does not answer. And perhaps the inability to answer is precisely the point. There is something about existence that resists temporal categorization. We experience events as happening before or after other events, but consciousness continually disrupts these distinctions. The past can become present. The future can become emotionally real before it occurs. A childhood memory can suddenly become more vivid than the room in which we currently sit. The frame remains, but what it frames refuses to stay still.

The absurd architecture of memory

This becomes particularly visible when Bernardo Soares turns toward memory: “Na recordação, que tenho da minha vida passada, os tempos estão dispostos em níveis e planos absurdos...” This may be the most important sentence in the fragment since memory does not preserve the past as a chronological archive. It reorganizes it spatially, and there are “níveis e planos”. Some memories are near. Others are distant. Some are vivid. Others have almost disappeared. Some moments from childhood can feel strangely remote, while another event from decades later may seem extraordinarily close.

Soares gives us a fascinating paradox: Chronological distance and psychological distance are not the same thing. The past is not a line; it is a landscape. And the self does not move through this landscape according to the calendar. And this is where Bergson becomes particularly useful. For Bergson (1910), duration involves the persistence of the past within the present: each moment of consciousness contains, in some form, what came before. Memory is not merely a warehouse in which old experiences are stored; the past continues to shape the present.

Soares's formulation is more radical because his memories appear almost architecturally disordered. The past does not simply accumulate behind him. It is continually rearranged according to the intensity with which consciousness encounters it. The child is therefore not necessarily "farther away" than the adult. Sometimes the child is closer. Sometimes fifteen years ago is more immediate than yesterday. And suddenly the chronology of the calendar becomes almost irrelevant.

The impossible present

This leads us to what I consider the central philosophical insight of fragment 350. If the past can become present, and the future can be anticipated before it arrives, where exactly is the present? Bernardo Soares never formulates the question quite this way, but the entire fragment seems to circle around it.

Heidegger's (1962) analysis of temporality helps illuminate what is happening here. Rather than treating past, present, and future as three independent points arranged along a line, Heidegger understands human temporality as an interconnected structure in which what-has-been, what-is-present, and what-is-possible continually belong together.

This is remarkably close to the strange architecture of Soares's consciousness. The present is never pure present; it contains memory, expectation, possibility, and interpretation. And, perhaps most importantly for Soares, it contains self-consciousness. Bernardo is telling us that we do not simply experience the present; we know that we are experiencing the present. And the moment we turn toward our experience and say, we are experiencing this now, the "now" has already begun to recede.

This creates an existential paradox: The more intensely Soares tries to become conscious of the present, the more the present escapes him. This may explain why contemplation in O Livro do Desassossego so frequently produces dissatisfaction rather than peace. Reflection does not stabilize existence; it destabilizes it.

The self that cannot remain in one time

The temporal problem is therefore also an identity problem. Who is Bernardo Soares? Is he the person who experienced the past? The person who remembers it? The person who is remembering it now? The person who imagines his future? Or the person who writes all of this down? The answer may be: all of them, simultaneously.

This is why Soares's consciousness often feels fragmented without necessarily being schizophrenic or incoherent. His fragmentation is temporal before it is psychological. He is inhabited by different temporal versions of himself. That is, the child exists inside the adult. The remembered person exists inside the remembering person. The imagined future self exists inside the present self. The writer exists inside the experience being written. Consequently, identity becomes a temporal multiplicity.

This is particularly compatible with Ricoeur's account of the relationship between time and narrative. In Time and Narrative, Ricoeur (1990) argues that narrative and temporal experience are intimately connected: narrative gives temporal experience a form, while temporal experience gives narrative its fundamental problem. Soares reverses this relationship in a particularly Pessoa-like way. He does not narrate his life in order to create a coherent identity; he writes because his identity cannot become coherent. The fragments are not failures to construct a biography. They are the form appropriate to a self that experiences itself as temporally fragmented.

Writing against disappearance

And here the meditation on time leads inevitably to the act of writing. And it is here where the readers find Bernardo Soares writing because everything passes. Yet writing itself cannot stop time. And this produces one of the deepest paradoxes in Desassossego: Writing preserves an experience by transforming it into language, but the transformation itself proves that the original experience has already disappeared.

From a metaphorically paleontological standpoint, the written sentence becomes a kind of temporal fossil. The experience is gone. The consciousness that experienced it is already different. But the sentence remains. This is the reason why the diary form is so important. A diary appears to record the present, but the act of writing always occurs a fraction of a second after experience. By the time an experience becomes language, it has already entered memory.

Thus:

experience → consciousness → reflection → language

And at every stage, time has passed. The diary therefore becomes an impossible attempt to write the present. It is always writing the present that has just become the past. And this may explain why the Livro feels so strangely suspended. It is neither autobiography nor conventional diary, neither novel nor philosophical treatise. It inhabits an interval. And interval may be the key word to describe Bernardo’s diary.

Soares and the Benjaminian instant

Walter Benjamin (2006) offers another productive way of thinking about this problem. Benjamin (2006) challenges the idea of history as a homogeneous continuum and develops the notion of Jetztzeit, or "now-time": a charged present in which past and present can suddenly encounter one another. His historical thought resists the idea of empty, homogeneous chronological progression.

Bernardo Soares's experience is not historical in Benjamin's political sense, but there is an illuminating structural affinity. For Soares, the past is not dead simply because it happened earlier. Based on his written account, one concludes that a memory can suddenly erupt into the present. A childhood scene can become contemporary. A forgotten emotion can return with unexpected intensity.

Time is therefore capable of folding. The past does not always remain behind us. Sometimes it arrives. And when it arrives, chronological distance collapses. This gives us another way of understanding Soares's "absurd" temporal planes. Memory creates moments in which the past becomes contemporaneous with the present. The event is no longer merely something that was. It becomes something that is again, although never in exactly the same way. This is why memory in Soares is not simple recovery. It is reappearance.

“Que coisa é esta que nos mede sem medida?”

Near the end of the fragment, Soares asks perhaps his most haunting question: “Que coisa, porém, é esta que nos mede sem medida e nos mata sem ser?” As it can be seen, the contradiction is devastating. Time measures us but cannot itself be measured. It kills us but apparently does not possess existence in the ordinary sense. It governs our lives without presenting itself as an object. This gives time an almost metaphysical personality. And Soares explicitly moves toward that possibility: “...é nestes momentos, em que nem sei se o tempo existe, que o sinto como uma pessoa...”

This is perhaps where the fragment ceases to be merely philosophical and becomes profoundly poetic. Based on Bernardo Soares’s cavillations time becomes a person. For him the abstraction becomes a presence; the invisible becomes intimate. And what does Soares want to do when time becomes almost personified? He wants to sleep: “...tenho vontade de dormir.”  Therefore, the ending is perfect because it refuses philosophical closure. Soares does not solve time. He becomes exhausted by thinking about it. And his response to metaphysical uncertainty is not enlightenment but withdrawal. Sleep becomes an escape from the demand to locate oneself temporally. Perhaps sleep is the only state in which Soares does not have to answer the question: Where am I in time?

Desassossego as temporal condition

At this point, desassossego (disquiet) itself can be reinterpreted. We usually understand disquiet as an emotional or psychological condition. But fragment 350 suggests something more fundamental. Desassossego may be what happens when consciousness cannot remain inside chronological time. Soares cannot simply inhabit the present because the present is constantly invaded by what has been and what might be. Consequently, he cannot trust the past because memory rearranges it. He cannot trust the present because consciousness immediately transforms it into reflection. He cannot trust the future because anticipation can create experiences before they happen. He cannot even trust dreams because dreams expose the elasticity of temporal experience. And so he occupies an interval between temporal categories.

Bernardo Soares is always slightly elsewhere. This may be the deepest reason for the peculiar sadness of O Livro do Desassossego. Soares does not merely suffer because life passes. He suffers because he is conscious of life passing while it is still happening. And for him, that is a much more painful condition; a person can lose the past without thinking continuously about having lost it. But Soares cannot.

A person can anticipate the future without simultaneously observing the act of anticipation. Soares cannot. A person can live a moment without asking what it means to be living it. But once again, Soares cannot. His consciousness is always one step removed from experience. And that distance is his desassossego.

The present that cannot stay

Perhaps, then, we should return to the opening sentence: “Não sei o que é o tempo.” It is tempting to interpret this as ignorance. As a reader, I would read it differently. From my personal stance, it is an admission that the ordinary concept of time is inadequate to describe lived existence. Soares knows that clocks exist. He also knows that emotions alter our perception, that dreams distort duration, that memory rearranges the past, and that consciousness complicates every temporal boundary.

What Bernardo Soares does not know, and perhaps what cannot be known, is the thing itself that lies behind all these experiences. And perhaps that unknowability is precisely what makes time so powerful. Time is not simply the medium through which we live. It is the condition that prevents us from ever possessing the life we are living. By the time we recognize an experience as experience, it has already become memory. By the time we imagine the future, we have already brought it into the present as possibility. And by the time we describe the present, we have already lost it.

The present therefore becomes an impossible home. We are always arriving and are always leaving. We are always remembering what has just happened and anticipating what has not yet happened. We live in the interval. And Bernardo Soares inhabits that interval with an almost unbearable lucidity.

Conclusion: Time as the architecture of desassossego

Fragment 350 ultimately transforms a familiar philosophical question, What is time?, into a question about consciousness itself. The clock gives us measurable time but not lived time. Emotion gives us sensations of duration, but not time itself. Dreams reveal the elasticity of temporality without explaining it. Memory rearranges chronology into subjective landscapes. Consciousness refuses to remain confined to the present. And writing attempts, unsuccessfully but persistently, to preserve what consciousness knows it cannot retain.

Bergson (1910) helps us understand why lived duration cannot be reduced to spatialized units. Heidegger (1962) helps us see why human existence is constituted through an interrelation of past, present, and future rather than a simple succession of moments. Ricoeur (1990) helps us recognize the intimate relationship between temporal experience and the linguistic forms through which we attempt to configure it. Benjamin (2006), finally, offers a vocabulary for understanding how the past can suddenly become present rather than remaining safely behind us.

But Soares ultimately exceeds all of them, not because he develops a more systematic philosophy, but because he refuses the consolation of system. He ends where he began: uncertain. Uncertainty in the mind of Bernardo helps him comprehend that time cannot be adequately measured and that it cannot be securely located. He also comes to realize that time cannot be fully remembered nor possessed. It cannot even be established with certainty as something that exists independently of the consciousness that experiences it. And yet it governs everything.

Bernardo jots down a maxim that governs us all; time “nos mede sem medida”. It measures us without itself being measurable. Perhaps this is the deepest tragedy of Soares's temporal consciousness: we become ourselves only through time, but time is precisely what prevents us from ever remaining the same self. And what we witness through time is that a child disappears into an adult. That adult disappears into memory. Memory disappears into language. Language remains after the person has disappeared.

And somewhere inside this chain, Bernardo Soares writes. Not because writing can defeat time, but because writing is perhaps the only place where he can momentarily stand still long enough to contemplate its passage. That is why O Livro do Desassossego is ultimately not a book about time. It is a book written from inside time's wound. And perhaps this is why Soares's final gesture is not an answer, but sleep. When thought has followed time to the edge of intelligibility, consciousness can do nothing more than close its eyes.

San José, Costa Rica

Saturday, November 7, 2026

Blog Post #600

📚 References

Benjamin, W. (2006). On the concept of history. In Selected writings (Vol. 4). Harvard University Press.

Bergson, H. (1910). Time and free will: An essay on the immediate data of consciousness (F. L. Pogson, Trans.). Macmillan. (Original work published 1889).

Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.). Harper & Row. (Original work published 1927).

Pessoa, F. (n.d.). Não sei o que é o tempo [Fragment 350]. In Livro do desassossego (R. Zenith, Ed.). Arquivo LdoD, Universidade de Coimbra. https://ldod.uc.pt/fragments/fragment/Fr221/inter/Fr221_WIT_ED_CRIT_Z

Ricoeur, P. (1990). Time and narrative (Vol. 1, K. McLaughlin & D. Pellauer, Trans.). University of Chicago Press.

 Análise dos Conceitos Temporais em Bernardo Soares

Click to enlarge the infographic: El tiempo y el desasosiego en Bernardo Soares

Continue the Conversation: Watch the Explainer Video

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. If you would like to revisit its central ideas from a different perspective, I invite you to watch the accompanying explainer video.

Designed to complement—not replace—the essay, the video highlights its main arguments, provides additional context, and offers a concise visual journey through the themes explored in La Buenaventura. I hope it helps you see Alarcón's story from a fresh perspective.

If you enjoy the video, feel free to explore my YouTube channel, where I share more explainers and reflections on literature, English language teaching, linguistics, mythology, culture, education, and related topics.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCflH3o-0ZoYauP8t5fcCM4Q

Thank you for reading, watching, and joining me on this ongoing journey of learning and discovery.

 

✍️ Introductory Note to the Reader      I first encountered The Curious Case of Benjamin Button not through F. Scott Fitzgerald’s text, but rather when I found my wife watching David Fincher’s film adaptation. The story, at that point, was completely unfamiliar to me. Later, while browsing through my Kindle tablet, I stumbled upon Fitzgerald’s original version and decided to read it. Only after finishing the story did I begin to wonder, in literary terms, whether there was an underlying morality or ethical dimension behind its strange premise.      Interestingly, the film and the novella are quite different in narrative scope and characterization. Yet, at their core, both seem to aim at the same effect: to make the reader or viewer reflect on the meaning of life, the passage of time, and the values that guide human existence. This paper, then, is the result of personal curiosity transformed into a moral-humanistic exploration of Fitzgerald’s text, with attention also given to Fincher’s interpretation.

Time in Reverse: A Moral-Humanistic Reading of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

	Abstract This paper offers a moral-humanistic literary analysis of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (1922), examining the ethical questions raised by its protagonist’s reverse aging. Through the lens of human dignity, moral agency, and the tragedy of disconnection, the study highlights how Fitzgerald critiques societal rigidity and the denial of authenticity to those who do not conform to conventional norms of age and identity. The analysis draws on scholars such as Wayne Booth, Martha Nussbaum, Viktor Frankl, and Paul Ricoeur to explore themes of meaning, temporality, and narrative closure. The paper also compares Fitzgerald’s satirical short story with David Fincher’s 2008 film adaptation, noting how the latter humanizes Benjamin’s character by granting him agency, love, and moral choice. The contrast reveals how literature and film offer distinct moral visions of human life, mortality, and dignity. Keywords: Benjamin Button, moral-humanistic criticism, Fitzgerald, David Fincher, ethics, temporality, human dignity
	Resumen Este trabajo presenta un análisis literario humanista y moral de The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (1922) de F. Scott Fitzgerald, explorando los dilemas éticos que surgen a partir del envejecimiento inverso de su protagonista. A través de los ejes de la dignidad humana, la agencia moral y la desconexión afectiva, se muestra cómo Fitzgerald critica la rigidez social y la negación de autenticidad hacia quienes no se ajustan a las normas convencionales de edad e identidad. El estudio se apoya en autores como Wayne Booth, Martha Nussbaum, Viktor Frankl y Paul Ricoeur para abordar los temas del sentido, la temporalidad y el cierre narrativo. Asimismo, se compara el relato satírico de Fitzgerald con la adaptación cinematográfica dirigida por David Fincher en 2008, subrayando cómo esta última humaniza al personaje al otorgarle agencia, amor y capacidad de decisión moral. El contraste revela cómo la literatura y el cine ofrecen visiones morales distintas sobre la vida, la mortalidad y la dignidad.
	Resumo Este artigo propõe uma leitura literária humanista e moral de The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (1922), de F. Scott Fitzgerald, analisando os dilemas éticos gerados pelo envelhecimento reverso do protagonista. A partir das noções de dignidade humana, agência moral e desconexão afetiva, argumenta-se que Fitzgerald critica a rigidez social e a negação da autenticidade diante daqueles que não se enquadram nas normas convencionais de idade e identidade. O estudo dialoga com autores como Wayne Booth, Martha Nussbaum, Viktor Frankl e Paul Ricoeur para discutir sentido existencial, temporalidade e fechamento narrativo. Além disso, compara-se o conto satírico de Fitzgerald com a adaptação cinematográfica dirigida por David Fincher em 2008, que humaniza o protagonista ao lhe conferir agência, amor e escolha moral. O contraste evidencia como literatura e cinema constroem visões éticas diferentes sobre a vida, a mortalidade e a dignidade.

Introduction

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (1922) presents a bizarre premise: a man born old who grows younger with time. While this reversal of aging is scientifically implausible, its literary value lies in the rich moral and humanistic questions it raises about identity, love, family, dignity, and what it means to live a “normal” human life. Through a moral-humanistic lens, an approach that explores literature for its ethical values and its portrayal of human potential, this story becomes a vehicle for reflection on societal expectations and the dignity of human experience, regardless of chronological order. As Abrams (1971) notes, humanistic criticism seeks to evaluate literature based on “the relevance of its vision to our moral and spiritual life” (p. 24), a standard that Fitzgerald’s tale both fulfills and complicates.

Human Dignity and the Right to Difference

From the moment Benjamin is born, society reacts with discomfort and rejection. His father, Roger Button, initially cannot accept his son’s appearance: “You’re my son!” he cried. “You’re my son!” and he looked with eyes that were frightened rather than loving (Fitzgerald, 1922). This moment in the plot of the story reveals a deep moral issue: the denial of dignity to those who are different and who do not fit social standards. As Nussbaum (2001) asserts, a core element of humanistic ethics is “the capacity to recognize each human being as an end” (p. 74). However, Roger Button fails this test, prioritizing social conformity over his son’s humanity.

In this novella, Benjamin’s ostracization reflects a broader cultural rigidity and social conventions. Scholars like Bryer (1996) emphasize that Fitzgerald’s neglected stories often critique “the tyranny of convention and social expectation” (p. 19) in the early 20th Century society in the United States. Benjamin, as the central character in this story, embodies this social tension: his unique condition (growing “younger” after being born old) exposes society’s discomfort with nonconformity.

A Life Without Moral Agency?

The humanistic tradition values the development of moral agency, our ability to choose and act responsibly. But does Benjamin truly develop such an agency? His life seems passive, as he is continually acted upon by others. He enlists in the war not out of patriotic fervor but because his appearance matches the role of a soldier: “The officers were so delighted with Benjamin's appearance that they made him a lieutenant within three days” (Fitzgerald, 1922). And then he marries Hildegarde not out of deep connection, but because their apparent ages align and her delight in much older men.

Benjamin thus appears morally neutered, unable to act authentically due to external perceptions, which he is not able to fully understand because of his “young” age. Yet, as Booth (1988) reminds us, moral growth often emerges through conflict between the inner self and the outer world. Benjamin’s increasing frustration and vexation with roles imposed on him suggests a slow moral awakening. Here, Erikson’s (1959) model of psychosocial development is useful: each life stage is meant to cultivate identity and responsibility. Benjamin’s reverse life distorts this “natural” sequence, creating a poignant commentary on how social categories (child, adult, elder) dictate moral expectations even when they no longer fit.

The Tragedy of Disconnection

Benjamin’s reverse trajectory denies him the opportunity to build lasting relationships, one of the most profound moral concerns in the story. His disconnection from wife and son signals an erosion of his place in the moral fabric of family and tapestry of society: “His son Roscoe, now eighteen, began to be ashamed of him” (Fitzgerald, 1922) because Benjamin looked much younger than him. For Fitzgerald biographer Bruccoli (2002), this detachment reflects the author’s recurring concern with “the impermanence of bonds in a world ruled by appearances” (p. 311). Benjamin in trapped in a “world of appearances” eroding his few bonds with people whom we normally feel attached to wife, children, parents, etc.

Humanistic criticism emphasizes the value of intergenerational understanding and continuity, which Benjamin’s life disrupts. Butler’s (1963) classic study of “life review” underscores that aging normally involves reflecting on one’s past to achieve a sense of integrity. Benjamin’s regression into infancy tragically denies him this moral closure. As he gets younger and younger, Benjamin starts losing dexterity achieved by age and world understanding acquired through social interactions. His persistent forgetfulness of the kind of person he used to be does not allow him to reflect on his past that as he is getting much younger becomes effaced from his memories.

Mortality and the Search for Meaning

In moral-humanistic terms, the awareness of death often defines the intensity and integrity of human life. However, Benjamin’s trajectory subverts the usual arc of gaining wisdom with age. As he becomes an defenseless infant, he loses his ability to use language, his long-term memory, and ultimately his consciousness: “Then it was all dark, and his white crib and the dim faces that moved above him, and the warm sweet aroma of the milk, faded out altogether from his mind” (Fitzgerald, 1922). And this was the end of Benjamin’s existence, when the light went off.

This quiet fade is tragic because it denies the usual moral culmination of life, a moment of reflection, of legacy to others. According to Frankl (1959), meaning is forged in how we confront limitations. Benjamin’s life denies him this final humanizing act. As Ricoeur (1984) argues in Time and Narrative, our lives gain coherence through temporal emplotment, telling a story of beginnings, middles, and ends. Benjamin’s inverted temporality erases narrative closure, leaving only fragmentation, isolated events that can make up a life if placed chronologically.

Comparison with David Fincher’s Film Adaptation

David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) expands and reinterprets Fitzgerald’s story with greater emotional depth and humanistic richness. While the short story is satirical and ironic, the film is romantic and existential. Brad Pitt’s Benjamin is a gentle soul who reflects deeply on love, loss, and the fragility of time. The addition of Daisy provides a moral center, enabling Benjamin to experience authentic connections with other individuals.

Film theorists have noted how cinema uniquely portrays time. Mulvey (2006) argues that film’s treatment of mortality often captures the “tension between stillness and becoming” (p. 39), a principle Fincher exploits by showing Benjamin aging backward through digitally manipulated imagery. Elsaesser (2009) highlights that temporality in film often conveys existential themes; in Benjamin Button, time’s reversal becomes a metaphor for the impossibility of permanence in love.

In contrast to Fitzgerald’s Benjamin, Fincher’s protagonist actively seeks meaning. His moral agency is highlighted by decisions like leaving Daisy when he realizes he cannot father a child responsibly. As Kearney (2003) notes, the ethics of imagination allow us to envision alternative futures and take responsibility even in non-normative lives. Fincher’s adaptation embraces this moral potential.

Conclusion

Viewed through a moral-humanistic lens, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button challenges the reader to consider what makes a life worth living. Fitzgerald’s story critiques society’s treatment of the “other,” questions our reliance on chronological identity, and warns against the moral dangers of conformity. While the short story’s Benjamin is denied full moral development, Fincher’s adaptation restores human depth, portraying a life lived with dignity despite its unconventional course. Ultimately, both versions remind us that the essence of morality lies not in our age, but in our ability to love, choose, and remain true to our humanity.

📚 References

Abrams, M. H. (1971). The mirror and the lamp: Romantic theory and the critical tradition. Oxford University Press.

Booth, W. C. (1988). The company we keep: An ethics of fiction. University of California Press.

Bruccoli, M. J. (2002). Some sort of epic grandeur: The life of F. Scott Fitzgerald. University of South Carolina Press.

Bryer, J. R. (1996). New essays on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s neglected stories. University of Missouri Press.

Butler, R. N. (1963). The life review: An interpretation of reminiscence in the aged. Psychiatry, 26(1), 65–76.

Elsaesser, T. (2009). Film theory: An introduction through the senses. Routledge.

Fincher, D. (Director). (2008). The curious case of Benjamin Button [Film]. Paramount Pictures.

Fitzgerald, F. S. (1922). The curious case of Benjamin Button. In Tales of the Jazz Age. Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Frankl, V. E. (1959). Man’s search for meaning. Beacon Press.

Kearney, R. (2003). Strangers, gods and monsters: Interpreting otherness. Routledge.

Mulvey, L. (2006). Death 24x a second: Stillness and the moving image. Reaktion Books.

Nussbaum, M. C. (2001). Upheavals of thought: The intelligence of emotions. Cambridge University Press.

Ricoeur, P. (1984). Time and narrative (Vol. 1). University of Chicago Press.

Character Chart: Moral-Humanistic Dimensions in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Moral-Humanistic Dimensions in the Curious Case of Benjamin Button by Jonathan Acuña

Moral-Humanistic Dimensions in Fincher’s Benjamin Button