"Tender is the Night"

Paper Summary:

The paper introduces, discusses, and analyzes the novel "Tender is the Night" by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Specifically, the paper discusses the theme of the novel and notes that the book is an emotional look at the author's own troubled life and marriage, couched in the story of Dick Diver, a psychoanalyst who analyzes his own wife. The paper further notes that, while the theme of the novel is complicated, one of the most compelling themes is of youthful beauty and youth itself, which is represented by Diver's continual interest in younger women, and even his own children. The paper comments that this theme flows throughout the novel along with an underlying theme of excess and self-destruction that help flesh out the theme of an obsessive and destructive interest in youth and beauty.

From the Paper:

"In addition, as the novel progresses, it becomes clear that Dick is strongly attracted to young women who exude a certain charm and naivete. He meets Nicole when she is only sixteen and being checked into a mental institution in Switzerland, and he clearly admires Rosemary from the first time he meets her. He is attracted to younger women, possibly because he is older, more educated, and can feel as if he dominates them and has power over them. Fitzgerald describes Rosemary as "Her immature mind made no speculations upon the nature of their relation to each other, she was only concerned with their attitude toward herself" (Fitzgerald 19). Thus, younger women are less complicated and speculative, and so, he does not have to worry about being dissected or understood by these younger women, where older, more mature women would be more apt to question him and his motives. In short, younger women are easier to deal with, and expect less from their men, and Dick takes advantage of their "immature" minds to mold them into something he thinks he wants."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Fitzgerald, F. Scott. Tender is the Night. New York: Scribner Paperback Edition, 1995.
• Pelzer, Linda C. Student Companion to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000.
• Sullivan, Paul. "The End of an Era: Tender Is the Night Is the Chronicle-And One of the Causes-Of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Fall from Literary Grace." Book Sept.-Oct. 2002: 26+.

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