In 1930, Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, F. Scott Fitzgerald's infamous wife, was admitted to a French sanatorium. By 1932, she would be declared schizophrenic, and her husband--his supposed masterwork, The Great Gatsby, seven years behind him--would be deep in the process of writing Tender is the Night, the story of a charming, young psychiatrist who marries his emotionally disturbed patient.
Beyond the Basics: Tender is the Night
The synchronicity is tempting: we're tempted to look at Tender as the Night as a thinly-veiled gloss on the autobiographical dirt of the Fitzgerald marriage. But we can also look at the book as something larger: as a swan song for the Jazz Age, for the American idealism that fueled Gatsby, and for the illusions of everlasting love.
At the center of Tender is the Night are Dick and Nicole Diver, the former the psychiatrist and the latter the patient. The novel charts, in a zig-zag fashion, their relationship from its beginning to its end, correlated with the ascent of Nicole--from hopeless neurotic to seemingly independent young woman--and the descent of Dick--from promising, charming socialite to bitterly ironic drunk.
The synchronicity is tempting: we're tempted to look at Tender as the Night as a thinly-veiled gloss on the autobiographical dirt of the Fitzgerald marriage. But we can also look at the book as something larger: as a swan song for the Jazz Age, for the American idealism that fueled Gatsby, and for the illusions of everlasting love.
At the center of Tender is the Night are Dick and Nicole Diver, the former the psychiatrist and the latter the patient. The novel charts, in a zig-zag fashion, their relationship from its beginning to its end, correlated with the ascent of Nicole--from hopeless neurotic to seemingly independent young woman--and the descent of Dick--from promising, charming socialite to bitterly ironic drunk.
As Great Novels tend to do, Tender is the Night tries to be more than just the simple story of the characters: much is made here about class and its pretensions (Mary North and Nicole Diver's sister both defer outrageously to titles and ceremony, and in one fairly good sequence Dick Diver intimidates a policeman by asserting that the woman he's just arrested is related to America's "Lord Henry Ford"), and much is equally made about the World War and its aftermath, particularly about Dick Diver's non-role in the fighting.
Additionally, it's probably the case that Fitzgerald wants to make some point about the relationship of America to the Old World: virtually the entire book takes place overseas, from Nice to Zurich to Rome, and the most charged scenes all involve clashes between the befuddled, braggart Americans and the codified restraint (or lack thereof) of the Europeans.
Additionally, it's probably the case that Fitzgerald wants to make some point about the relationship of America to the Old World: virtually the entire book takes place overseas, from Nice to Zurich to Rome, and the most charged scenes all involve clashes between the befuddled, braggart Americans and the codified restraint (or lack thereof) of the Europeans.
But in the book, all of this remains in the background, accent notes to the main themes of marriage and its ethical compromises. The Divers' marriage is founded, from the start, on questionable ethical grounds: Nicole Diver, in her disorder, latches onto a photo of Dick and begins writing him long, jumbled, flattering letters. He, appropriately flattered, disregards both professional ethics and the advice of his colleagues by marrying the girl.
Conflict & Beginning in the Middle: Tender is the Night
Thus begins their long relationship and series of jaunts across Europe, punctuated by occasional flares of conflict: her family's money, his drinking, and the ever-present specter of infidelity and its flip-side: a weakening sense of loyalty to the decisions of one's past.
Conflict & Beginning in the Middle: Tender is the Night
Thus begins their long relationship and series of jaunts across Europe, punctuated by occasional flares of conflict: her family's money, his drinking, and the ever-present specter of infidelity and its flip-side: a weakening sense of loyalty to the decisions of one's past.
All of this sounds fine, except that Fitzgerald makes the early, book-compromising decision to begin his story smack in the middle of the marriage, rather than at its outset. This allows him to achieve some nice effects, true: the characters who come to dominate the latter part of the book--Latin self-made man Tommy Barban, wide-eyed and Diver-captivated ingénue Rosemary Hoyt--are introduced early and given an appropriately lingering sense of menace, the slow dissolution and drunken death of Abe North provides some good foreshadowing, and we're allowed to see through Rosemary's eyes exactly what's so captivating about Dick Diver in comparison to the rest of the expatriate cast.
However, the novel's chronology also forces an uncomfortable shift midway through the book (when we suddenly realize that the book is about Dick, not Rosemary), and Fitzgerald seems to feel the need to race through the early years of the Diver marriage in order to catch up to the threads of the Rosemary plot, still dangling in the wind where he left them before departing on his extended flashback.
However, the novel's chronology also forces an uncomfortable shift midway through the book (when we suddenly realize that the book is about Dick, not Rosemary), and Fitzgerald seems to feel the need to race through the early years of the Diver marriage in order to catch up to the threads of the Rosemary plot, still dangling in the wind where he left them before departing on his extended flashback.
