“Tender is the night” F.

Scott Fitzgerald

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (known as F. Scott Fitzgerald) was a short story writer and
novelist considered one of the pre-eminent authors in the history of American literature due
almost entirely to the enormous posthumous success of his third book, The Great Gatsby
(1925). Fitzgerald is an outstanding representative of the literature of modernism. Fitzgerald
entered the literature of the United States primarily as the first exponent of the ideas of the Lost
Generation. In the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald, the theme of the Lost generation sounds in the
paintings pernicious pursuit of wealth, which covered young people of postwar America. F. S.
Fitzgerald, as a symbol of this era, gives it the name "The Jazz Age". F. Scott Fitzgerald is one
of the most well-known authors of the Jazz Age. Ironically, his fictitious writings were actually
reality-based and reveal some of Fitzgerald's own struggles. His complex, descriptive writing
style is widely based on his own life and life experiences. One style element that F. Scott
Fitzgerald is widely known for is his descriptive language. The way he uses striking adjectives
creates a vivid picture for the reader. Fitzgerald uses his descriptive style to reveal qualities of
his characters. Another descriptive technique that Fitzgerald often employed is the simile. F.
Scott Fitzgerald utilizes many writing techniques to draw the reader in and create his own
unique style. His novels include elaborate descriptions of characters and places, similes that
create imagery, as well as repetition, various forms of literature, and allusions. By using a
variety of literary techniques, Fitzgerald develops his individual writing style through which he
hopes to immerse the reader story and message. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Books are “This Side of
Paradise” (1920), “The Beautiful and Damned” (1922), “The Great Gatsby” (1925), “Tender Is
the Night” (1934), “The Love of the Last Tycoon” (unfinished). Fitzgerald began work on his
last novel, The Love of the Last Tycoon, in 1939. He had completed over half the manuscript
when he died in 1940. Beginning in 1920 and continuing throughout the rest of his career,
Fitzgerald supported himself financially by writing great numbers of short stories for popular
publications such as The Saturday Evening Post and Esquire. Some of his most notable stories
include "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz," "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "The
Camel's Back" and "The Last of the Belles."

“Tender is the Night” is a novel written by Francis Scott Fitzgerald in 1934 and it was his
last completed novel. This book is his last novel and really the treasure of American and world
literature. The novel is normally considered a modernist novel. It`s a reaction to WWII and the
piecing together of broken lives. The novel contains elements of Fitzgerald's own life and
marriage to Zelda, that`s why it also may be called realistic. The story is about human
degeneration and the decay of love and marriage due to excesses of different kinds and mental
disorders. The novel tells us about a young beautiful actress, Rosemary Hoyt, arriving at a
Hotel on the French Riviera with her mother for a vacation. There, Rosemary meets Dick
Diver, a handsome psychiatrist, and his pretty wife, Nicole Diver. This young couple leads an
attractive way of life full of parties and interesting people. Rosemary becomes part of this
world and she immediately falls in love with Dick, who demonstrates the same feelings for her.
When they are able to consummate their love everything starts changing. Dick becomes an
alcoholic and he is accused of having an affair with a young patient. With this questionable
behavior Dick risks his marriage, which seems to be perfect, his friends and the most
meaningful thing in his life: his job.

The compositional complexity of the novel is due to a deliberate violation of the chronology
of the action. The work begins with a story about the arrival of Rosemary on the Riviera in June
1925, the events of this summer and make the contents of the first book, only at the very end
where it turns out that Nicole is sick. Only in the second book the writer returns us to the
beginning of the action — the spring of 1917 — and, consistently bringing the narrative up to
the moment that ends the first book, continuing on to the episode, illustrating how. acquire
moral superiority over the Wild. This ends the second book and the third is epilogue, allows the
writer to complete the placement of the accents. Thus, only in the middle of the novel the
mystery of the family of the Divers becomes known to the reader. Of course, such a feature of
the composition is important primarily for the "view" image of the protagonist. The sense of
violation of chronology is to give the reader a feel for days, weeks, months and years during
which Dick fought for the preservation of his personality, still not noticing lesions. Only from
the XI Chapter of the second book the action resumes, interrupted by the end of the first.
Continuation of the story occupies significantly less volume that would correspond to the
acceleration of the degradation of the Dick. The gradation of the actions emphasized a specific
artistic means, among which especially important is the installation (Chapter X). Further
"acceleration" is noticeable in the third book where Dick a few times, disappears from the field
of view of the reader. Composition, thus, as it gives impetus to the development of the plot, and
it is very important that in the first book the hero "sees" mostly the eyes of Rosemary. There is
a climax when Nicole has a freak-out on a Ferris wheel, and then she grabs the wheel while
Dick is driving and tries to steer the car off a cliff, with her, Dick, Lanier and Topsy along with
it. And then Dick needs a vacation and takes the long way to Rome. The readers can feel
suspense when Nicole and Dick run into Tommy Barban, Nicole’s fantasy lover, and when
Rosemary pops into town. As the denouement is the moment when Dick, Nicole and Tommy
amicably decide that Dick will go and Tommy will stay. And he does, right away. And in
conclusion all we really know is that at the end of the novel, which is set at some indeterminate
time in the fairly distant future (their future, our past). Nicole and Tommy are still together, but
she still talks about how much she loves Dick. She and Dick still keep in touch. We understand
that things haven’t been easy for him in the U.S. where he lives, and he’s practicing general
medicine somewhere in the New York state area.

The narrative perspective is a flexible combination of point of view character (not all the
time the same) and the author of "omniscience" which, thus limited, is entered in the necessary
framework, but the framework these can then grow, then shrink, and the author's point of view
can, if required, to become predominant. Dual view allows you to watch along with the hero
and at the same time to look at this hero. For the most part, the third person narrator of Tender
is the Night occupies the points of view of Dick Diver, Nicole Diver, and Rosemary Hoyt,
though it slips from time to time into many of the other characters, including Tommy Barban,
Abe North, Baby Warren, and Franz Gregorovius. What make the narrative so fascinating is its
sudden shift into the first person point of view of Nicole Diver in Book Two.

For the most part, the third person narrator of Tender is the Night occupies the points of view of
Dick Diver, Nicole Diver, and Rosemary Hoyt, though it slips from time to time into many of
the other characters, including Tommy Barban, Abe North, Baby Warren, and Franz
Gregorovius. What make the narrative so fascinating is its sudden shift into the first person
point of view of Nicole Diver in Book Two.

“Tender is the Night” deals with many different themes such as Acting, Perversion and
Paternity, but this essay is focused on Excess and Destruction, the most interesting one for it
has a close connection with the Jazz Age or the Great Depression that the country was going
through at the time the novel was written. This age was a time of excesses for the American
people as it followed the World War II.

The novel anguishes over the lives of its characters as they explore the extremes of love,
madness, and ambition in lush beauty and opulence, against the backdrop of a world torn apart
by World War I. The tone constantly reminds us that all this is serious business – the struggles
of the human condition are not to be taken lightly. Yet whenever we see nature in the novel, the
tone becomes hopeful, suggesting perhaps that nourishing and being nourished by nature’s
bounty can somehow heal the suffering and pain of the characters and the earth itself.

In my opinion there are three main characters in that novel: Dick Diver, Nicole Diver and
Rosemary Hoyt. Different linguistic devices and means of literary heroes’ characteristics reveal
the nature of the characters. The most widely employed devices are metaphorical comparison,
the use of allusions and play upon idioms. On the one hand, these linguistic means reflect
characters’ appearance, and on the other, help to reveal emotional state of heroes. The most
common in the narrative a metaphorical comparison. Dick Diver is the American son of a
clergyman who is on the way to becoming a renowned psychologist when he falls in love with
Nicole and marries her. Dick is extraordinarily charismatic and graceful at the start of the novel,
but eventually falls to his ruin. When the novel opens, Dick Diver is presented as a "golden
boy," with charisma and looks that reach godlike proportions. People are drawn to him like a
magnet, and those in his inner circle depend on him to provide both fun and stability. Dick
Diver shares a solid relationship with his admirable father who made every attempt to guide his
life as a youth so he would become a good man and a good father. After the burial of his highly
principled father, when Dick grieves saying "good by, my father--good-by, all my fathers" he is
in essence saying goodbye to the self he might have been, the person of whom his father would
have been proud (205). And although he could, at this point in his life, have pulled back from
the increasing decadent life he had been living and become a good father himself by fallowing
the example of his own father, he continues to gravitate instead toward a life of excess and
degradation. Nicole Diver - Born Nicole Warren, the beautiful heiress to a wealthy Chicago
magnate, Nicole was sexually abused by her father and suffers from mental breakdowns as a
result. She falls in love with Dick at first sight, and the two enjoy an extravagant and turbulent
life in Europe at the center of a sophisticated group of friends. In order to display emotions of
love Nicole Warren in relation to their future husband Dick Diver used the metaphorical
comparison "wearing her hope like a corsage at her belt". Costume Nicole sky-blue color is
compared metaphorically to accidentally hit the restaurant with a blower. This comparison
helps to emphasize the amazing beauty of Nicole, which is appreciated by others. (“Into the
dark, smoky restaurant, smelling of the rich raw foods on the buffet, slid Nicole's sky-blue suit
like a stray segment of the weather outside.”) At the end of the novel ego Nicole begins to
blossom like a lush rose ("Her ego began blooming like a great rich rose"), she is released from
care and custody of her husband. Dick and Nicole switch roles, now Dick’s ego begins to break
down because it ruined talent. Rosemary Hoyt - The beautiful young movie star, born in
America but educated in France, who falls in love with Dick at first sight and contributes to his
dissipation through their affair. The pallor of Rosemary Hoyt, an actress and sweetheart of dick
Diver, is enhanced by comparison with a white carnation left after a dance ("She was a white
carnation left after a dance"). Describing love of Rosemary Hoyt and Dick Diver, the author
metaphorically compares the views of the characters with a light touch of the wings of birds
("Their eyes met and brushed like birds' wings"). The emotional state of lovers likened to the
nerves that relax, as musical strings, and crackling, like wicker chairs. (“They were both in the
grey gentle world of a mild hangover of fatigue, when the nerves relax in bunches like piano
strings and crackle suddenly like wicker chairs. Nerves so raw and tender must surely join
other nerves, lips to lips, breast to breast.”)

Another image of heroes is the use of allusions. From the context of the novel the reader
learns about the formation of the happiness of Nicole and Dick. Nicole realized that she was a
beautiful and rich woman, but she brought it to the feet of Richard, who constantly cared for
her. Following is an allusive concept of Greek mythology, ambrosia (ambrosia; food of the
gods) and "myrtle" (Myrtle) in the phrase "gifts of sacrificial ambrosia, of worshipping myrtle"
(the gifts of sacrificial ambrosia and the Holy Myrtle), which emphasizes the worship of the
heroine in front of her husband. The extraordinary beauty Nicole Diver metaphorically was as
opposed to the beauty of Rosemary Hoyt. Nicole likened the paintbrush of Leonardo; of course,
this allusion is well understood by an educated reader, this refers to a famous Italian painter of
the Renaissance period Leonardo da Vinci. Thus beauty Nicole is the epitome of the hands of a
Master, while the Rosemary, just being attractive is an image of a normal Illustrator. (“Back at
two o'clock in the Roi George corridor the beauty of Nicole had been to the beauty of Rosemary
as the beauty of Leonardo's girl was to that of the girl of an illustrator.”) The arrival of the
wealthy family Diver on the Riviera is perceived by the villagers with reverence and awe. This
perception compares with the Italian Pilgrimage Lord Byron a century ago -- "the Italian
pilgrimages of Lord Byron a century before") (allusion to the famous English romantic poet
George Gordon Byron, who in 1816 left the UK and lived in Italy).

Another method of sketches of the characters is a play on idioms. A play on the idiom
"Achilles' heel" (Achilles heel; a weak, vulnerable place), in the context it is used in the plural
and is determined by the comparative degree of the adverb "fewer". Irony sounds in the phrase,
brought to life by a nominative value of the component of the idiom "heel" and it is reported
that a young idealist Dick Diver came to Zurich to be a doctor, having less vulnerable places
(literally five) than was necessary in order to equip a centipede, but with many illusions of
eternal strength, health, and human kindness. (“Dick got up to Zurich on fewer Achilles' heels
than would be required to equip a centipede, but with plenty - the illusions of eternal strength
and health, and of the essential goodness of people - they were the illusions of a nation, the lies
of generations of frontier mothers who had to croon falsely that there were no wolves outside
the cabin door.”) The idiom "a wolf in sheep's clothing" (wolf in sheep's clothing) is artfully
played out in the context (“Wolf-like under his sheep's clothing of long-staple Australian
Wool…”). This idiom reveals well-concealed emotions of Dick Diver who, as he believes,
anticipating the journey at sea, will be revealed in full on vacation. Therefore, the above
techniques help not only to colorfully display characters’ appearance, but also contribute to
reveal the nature of feelings and behaviors of the characters.

The presence of the symbols has enormous significance for the novel. Most of the
symbolism around gardens is shown in relation to Nicole. As her garden at Villa Diana grows
and blooms, so does she. Her health emerges slowly, as blossoms open from their buds.
Whenever she is working in her garden, she glows with happiness. And at the end of the book,
when she comes to despise the hot, glaring world of the beach—the world Dick Diver created
and once ruled over, just as he ruled over her life—she feels relief and a restoration of her
health when she reaches her beloved gardens, leaving him behind. Alcohol acts as a predictor of
destruction in the characters Abe North and Dick Diver. Continuous drinking has resulted in
Abe North’s social, emotional and physical decline. Once a successful musician, in Paris he
sits disheveled and seedy at the train station hiding his trembling hands in his pocket. His
alcohol-induced fog causes him to identify the wrong man as the thief who stole his thousand -
franc note and set the murder in motion. He remains in the Ritz bar while an innocent man
languishes in prison, because his drinking makes him helpless to take action. Ultimately, he
winds up brutally murdered in a New York bar called a speakeasy that sold alcohol during
Prohibition. Whereas earlier in the novel, Diver drank little, his seduction into the Jazz Age life
is well-lubricated by copious amounts of alcohol. He begins drinking in earnest after he finds
himself attracted to the teenage Rosemary and his drinking escalates until he winds up drunk
and beaten on the floor of an Italian jail, thrown out of his own clinic for drinking too much,
and so on until he loses his wife and children and sinks into obscurity in an unnamed New York
town. Another essential symbol is money. Money represents power, freedom, and safety in
Tender Is the Night. People in the novel with money are automatically able to have these three
things. They can buy what they want; they can buy their way out of sticky situations. They can
even achieve a clear conscience by keeping their "good names" through enforced silence.
People with money can live however they want, wherever they want. Dick seems to understand
the dangers associated with this much assurance tied up in money. For most of the novel he
resists the lure of the apparent ease associated with a life of wealth and its attendant privileges.
He rightly knows he will lose himself, his moral compass, if he succumbs to the lures of
money. That is exactly what happens, once he stops resisting it. He unravels quickly after
leaving his work at the clinic and allowing himself to spend without earning, to spend without
caring how much, to dissipate in an idle lifestyle.

As a conclusion, I think that the idea of that novel fits into a simple formula "the rich also
cry". Even money, success and fame do not guarantee happiness. The world of reach people is
brilliant, sparkling, merry and idle, it has a deceptive attractiveness and sophistication, apparent
energy and dynamics, but in fact, as Fitzgerald reveals, this world is poor and terminally ill. It
has nothing except money. It is characterized by a complete lack of spirituality, intellectual
impotence and moral degeneration. Spiritual ugliness is the norm here. To enter this world and
even to touch him, for anyone who does not belong to him, means to die, as Dick Diver. He had
a great potential as a psychiatrist but couldn’t realize it. The name “Tender is the Night” –
words from the "Ode to the Nightingale" of Keats, the meaning of it: beneath the visible
tenderness and beauty lurks in the dark, that takes away the will to live, leading to death. In the
novel everything harmful, noxious, deadly at first covered with a cheerful morning or afternoon
colors. Taking moral standards and way of life among the wealthy people, Dick is wasting time
and talents. He gradually loses himself as a scientist and ultimately as a person. It would appear
that Fitzgerald has divided his world into two parts—the night and the day. The day is reality,
hard, harsh, and vigorous: the night is illusion, tender, joyful, but devitalizing. The most
significant illusion that the night fosters is the illusion of happiness. To the Romantic,
happiness consists in preserving the high moment of joy. He has a dread of endings. “Tender is
the Night” is a book of endings: “Things are over down here,” says Dick. “I want it to die
violently instead of fading out sentimentally” (37-38). The Romantic dream is that the moment
of joy can be fixed forever in the final night; death then appears to be a welcome justification of
the night, ending all endings. Both the poem and the novel deal with these lovely illusions; but
what they teach is that the fancy cannot cheat so well that disappointment is the component of
time.