Author and early twentieth celebrity, F. Scott Fitzgerald described Tender is the Night as his most important novel. He worked on the novel for nine years and wrote at least three versions. At its core, however, is a narrative that remained consistently aligned with Fitzgerald’s own life story. His marriage to the beautiful and tragically mentally ill Zelda Sayre is reflected in the pages of this novel. And, like his protagonist Dick Diver, Fitzgerald’s relatively modest financial background vis-a-vis the circles in which he lived made him something of an outsider. Most importantly, however, is Dick Diver’s failure to live up to his potential, something Fitzgerald himself felt keenly. I recently attended classes on this book at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute taught by my sister, Ann Day, and their long-time teacher, Murray Ellison.
Set in Europe in the days before the stock market crash of 1929, Tender is the Night follows a group of expats whose lives are composed of excesses. They have too much free time, too much money, and they drink too much alcohol. A sense of ennui pervades their interactions as if nothing they do really matters. Like Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, and Sherwood Anderson, Fitzgerald was a member of what Gertrude Stein called “the Lost Generation.” These were writers who wrote in the disastrous wake of the first World War. One consequence of the “war to end all wars” was a loss of confidence by the survivors in the established institutions, specifically those in which most Americans had placed their trust—religion and government. Both had failed miserably to foresee or forestall the carnage of WW I. Fitzgerald’s protagonist never saw any action, but as his friend and colleague observe, “That doesn’t matter—we have [at his mental clinic] some shell-shocks who merely heard an air raid from a distance. We have a few who merely read newspapers.” Thus, one didn’t have to see the carnage to know it was happening or to be affected by it. Dick Diver emerged from the war physically unscathed, with high hopes and aspirations “to be a good psychologist—may be to be the greatest one that ever lived.” And, at first, it seems that he will do just that. Nicknamed “Lucky Dick” by his classmates at Yale, he embarks on what appears to be a rapid and remarkable rise to the top of his field. This rise is stalled, however, by his marriage to a wealthy young patient with whom he falls in love. In the beginning of his marriage, Dick is able to sustain the illusion of independence from his wife’s money by publishing papers. But this doesn’t last long, and he eventually succumbs to his wife’s desire to live in the style to which she is accustomed, i., e., one that her husband’s income alone cannot provide. Still, he seems to adapt and even flourish in this group of expats, who, like him, wander around Europe with no clear purpose.
Fitzgerald describes Dick’s wife, Nicole, as a beauty and together they become the “it” couple that everyone wants to be seen with. But, stripped of his ambition and his purpose, Dick seems to flounder. He looks for something to reignite his passion. It’s around this time that he meets Rosemary Hoyt, a beautiful young American actress who enters their little group and provides a much-needed relief from boredom. Rosemary is immediately smitten with Dick Diver. She tells her mother, “I fell in love on the beach.” This is a pivotal moment after which we see the end of Dick Diver’s rise and what will prove to be the beginning of his fall, both personally and professionally. To know this is Fitzgerald’s intention one need only look to Dick’s last name—Diver.
But, to truly understand this, one must examine his marriage. Dick meets Nicole when he is a young psychiatrist and she is a patient at a clinic where he comes to visit an old classmate. She is nearly a decade younger than Dick and a victim of paternal incest. Seeking the love and protection denied her by her father, Nicole is immediately attracted to the handsome psychiatrist in his military uniform. The uniform reinforces the appearance of the strength and power that Nicole craves. We know that the uniform is important to her because she is disappointed when she sees a photograph of him without it. She mentions this in a letter to Dick, whom she refers to as “Mon Capitaine”: “Dr. Gregory gave me a snapshot of you, not as handsome as you are in your uniform, but younger looking.”
For his part, Dick sees a beautiful and vulnerable young girl (she is only seventeen) who bolsters his sense of power by seeking his protection. The power dynamic of this relationship will shift over time once they are married, primarily because of Nicole’s vacillating mental health resulting from her childhood trauma and Dick’s inability to accept his subordination brought on by the imbalance in their financial conditions. Like an addiction to a drug, once accustomed to a lavish lifestyle, these characters cannot live without it. And, in spite of Dick’s efforts to live within his means, he becomes increasingly reliant on Nicole and her family’s money, even allowing her sister to finance the purchase of his clinic. As his dependence on Nicole increases, her dependence on him decreases. The illusion of strength and power supplied first by the uniform and later by his social prominence begins to fade. She sees him for who and what he truly is—an ordinary man subject to the same vulnerabilities and vices as her father. And, when Dick meets and eventually beds Rosemary, Nicole’s fears are confirmed, so she goes back in search of a more powerful man whom she can trust to protect her. She doesn’t have to look very far, as Tommy Barban is a member of their circle. Barban is a mercenary who will wear any uniform and fight any battle without regard for a moral code. What better protection could she possibly find?
Many scholars have noted the inverse trajectories of these two main characters, arguing that Nicole’s growing strength emphasizes Dick’s eventual weakness. But I would argue that both have a circular trajectory in which they simply end up where they started—Dick as a middle-class doctor in a small town and Nicole, the dependent of a powerful man.
One is left to wonder why Fitzgerald is so hard on these characters, and in particular, Dick Diver. Is it because he was so disappointed in himself? Only those who knew him best could say for sure, but readers of Tender is the Night can’t help but wonder how a man who is widely regarded as one of the most important writers of American literature could think so little of himself. Send comments and sign up to receive automatic new postings of this blog at the bottom of this page.
Mary Ramsey Evans
Photo in title : Everett Collection/age fotostock
by 
