The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Part 2, Section 1 Summary

  • In 1920 Roscoe Button has his first child. At this point, Benjamin is a ten-year-old boy running around his son’s hose. Roscoe is still angry with his father for behaving this way.
  • Five years later, Roscoe takes his son and his father to kindergarten. This time, Benjamin thinks kindergarten is the greatest place in the world, though he sometimes feels sad when he hears the other children talk about what they will do when they grow up.
  • When Benjamin gets too little for kindergarten, he stays at home with his nurse, Nana. As he gets younger and younger, he doesn’t remember or dream of all the things he did when he was a grown-up. These memories "[fade] like unsubstantial dreams from his mind as though they had never been" (2.1.9).
  • Eventually, all there is for Benjamin is sleep and food. "Then it was all dark, and his white crib and the dim faces that moved above him, and the warm sweet aroma of milk, faded out altogether from his mind" (2.1.11).