Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Tender is the Night is a semiautobiographical novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald that was published in the year 1933. His wife Zelda Sayre (Fitzgerald) was suffering from mental disorders and was hospitalized in Baltimore, Maryland due to her suicidal and homicidal tendencies. During this period, Fitzgerald rented a house in the suburbs of Towson to be close to the hospital where his wife was being treated. Meanwhile, he continued to write the manuscript of his fourth novel. The novel chronicles the rise and fall of Dick Diver, a promising young psychiatrist, and his wife, Nicole, who is one of his patients. The story mirrors events in the lives of Scott and Zelda as Nicole descends into mental illness and Dick starts his descent into alcoholism. While working on the book, Fitzgerald was beset with financial difficulties and drank heavily.
The title of the novel is taken from the poem “Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats.
Characters:
Richard Dick Diver is a Yale alumnus, a psychiatrist who gets the responsibility of treating the daughter of a business tycoon. He falls prey to Florence Nightingale Syndrom and marries the rich girl. However, the marriage doesn’t work and he becomes an alcoholic. Nicole Diver is an affluent mental patient who was sexually abused by her father. She improves under the treatment of Dick and falls for him and marries him. Rosemary Hoyt is an eighteen-year-old promising Hollywood actress who falls in love with Dick Diver. Tommy Barban is a Franco-American part-time soldier who admires Nicole and when Nicole fails to save her marriage with Dick, she divorces Dick and marries Tommy Barban. Frank Gregorovious is a Swiss psychiatrist who introduces Dick Diver to Nicole. Beth Warren is Nicole’s sister who opposed her marriage to Dick. Abe North is an alcoholic music composer while Mary North is his spirited wife who later divorces him and remarries a rich man. Albert McKisco is an American novelist who challenges Tommy for a duel. Violet McKisco is the wife of Albert McKisco who discovers that Nicole is suffering from mental illness and gossips about it while demeaning her. Jules Peterson is a black man who helps Abe North and is later found dead on the bed of Rosemary Hoyt.
Summary of Tender is the Night
The novel begins as a third-person narrative with the description of a beautiful ‘rose-colored’ hotel in the south of France on the French Rivera. The first character that appears is the young beautiful actress Rosemary Hoyt. She is just 18 years old and is vacationing in the hotel with her mother. To avoid the attraction of people in the hotel, she wanders off to a less-trafficked part of the hotel and there she sees Dick Diver and his gorgeous wife Nicole Warren Diver. Dick is the son of a prominent minister. He is a genius psychiatrist who married one of his former patients. Nicole Diver was his patient who is an extremely wealthy American. Her sister didn’t approve of their marriage as she believed that Dick married Nicole because of her fortune. However, Dick genuinely cares for Nicole who suffered incestuous sexual abuse from her father. As Nicole faces a mental meltdown, she completely relies on Dick for constant support.
As Rosemary observes the couple, she immediately falls in love with Dick. She adores his sophisticated behavior, personal intelligence, status, and equally wealthy friends. Rosemary admires Nicole and Dick as a couple as they appear so smart, fashionable, beautiful, and glamourous. However, she senses something wrong as if there is a strain in their relationship. She tries to make use of that fissure and imagines developing an affair with Dick. When she finds Dick alone, she tries to kiss him but Dick resists. Yet, he starts feeling warmth towards her and considers having an affair with her.
All appear gay and cheering as the days and nights and tender in the villa. One day, Abe North in his alcoholic spell accidentally kills a black man named Jules Peterson whose body is found in Rosemary’s bed. Rosemary gets horrified and seeks Dick’s help. Dick moves the bloodied body and makes the murder look like an accident so that Rosemary’s film career is not destroyed. Witnessing a homicide, Nicole suffers a mental meltdown and Violet McKisco sees Nicole having a nervous breakdown in the hotel bathroom. Violet gossips around about Nicole and this confirms Rosemary’s suspicion that something is wrong between the couple. As Violet continues to defame Nicole, Tommy Barban, another guest, comes to Nicole's defense and insists that Violet is lying. Angered by this accusation, Violet's husband Albert duels Barban on the beach, but both men miss their shots. Following these events, Dick, Nicole, Rosemary, and others depart the French Riviera.
The narrator then offers some back flashes. Dick was in his early 20s when he met a 16-year-old Nicole in the Viennese hospital where he worked. Dick helps Nicole overcome her fear of men. Gradually, Nicole improves and she becomes infatuated with Dick who, in turn, develops Florence Nightingale syndrome. The Florence Nightingale effect is a trope where a caregiver falls in love with their patient, even if very little communication or contact takes place outside of basic care. Feelings may fade once the patient is no longer in need of care.
Dick determines to marry Nicole to provide her with lasting emotional stability. The couple has two children, they travel extensively, and are visibly happy.
Meanwhile, the murder of Jules Peterson has a strong effect on Nicole, so when a Swiss mental clinic offers Dick a fellowship, the Divers agree to move there. Things go wrong as soon as they reach Switzerland. One former patient of Dick accuses him of cheating on Nicole. Disturbed by this accusation, Nicole purposefully crashes her car. Dick somehow manages to soothe Nicole. Soon he receives news that his father died. He must travel to the States to attend the funeral.
After the funeral, Dick decides to go to Rome where he meets Rosemary who is working on her new film. It doesn’t take long for the two of them to act upon the sexual longings they shared at the French Riviera. However, one day, Dick sees Rosemary with one of her co-actors in a compromising situation and objects to that. Their affair ends abruptly, and a drunk Dick eventually gets in trouble with the police. He is thrown in jail, and Nicole’s sister wires money to meet his bail. Dick is humiliated to his core. After the affair and his time in jail, Dick increasingly feels that he is no longer in control of his life. His reliance on alcohol increases.
He returns back to Switzerland but soon the other staff and patients of the hospital recognize that Dick is often drunk or is reeking of liquor. The management at the clinic eventually pays for him to leave. He starts making scenes in public and Nicole realizes that he is longing for Rosemary, who now is a major star in Hollywood.
Dick and Nicole return to Riviera. One Night Dick gets so drunk that he creates a scene and throws major insults at the couple’s old friends. Forced to support Dick and diffuse the situation, Nicole finds an inner strength that she previously thought she lacked. Nicole tries to better the situation but finds that she cannot do much as Dick is longing for Rosemary who is now a major star in Hollywood. As she realizes that Dick doesn’t love her and their marriage is a sham, she thinks of developing an affair with Tommy Barban who deeply admires her. She seeks divorce from Dick to be with Barban and Dick agrees to the divorce. Nicole soon marries Tommy Barban and begins her new confident and happy life. One day, she learns that Dick has returned to America and is living a nomadic existence. While he pined for Rosemary, she refused to return his affection and Dick continues to deteriorate.
Thus the novel ends here. Fitzgerald considered Tender is the Night is his best work, even better than The Great Gatsby. Tender is the Night has since been ranked as one of the best books of the 20th century. Its themes include adultery, the dangers of fantasy, parenting, the meaning of true love, and the instability of financial and social success.
This is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of American literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards.
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