Tender Is The Night By F. Scott Fitzgerald

Tender is the Night
F. Scott Fitzgerald is considered to be the author of the Jazz Age, a period marked by decadence and the pursuit of pleasure of the wealthy in stark contrast to the Great Depression occurring in the United States at the same time.   The characters in Fitzgerald’s novels Fitzgerald said of his novel Tender is the Night that it is his “statement of faith,” and through his depiction of the character Dick Diver, Fitzgerald shows that what he holds to be he believes in self-control and making one’s own future.   The man who is a stout expatriate is still a firm believer in the American Dream, that every person has the opportunity to make of their life what they dream.   Both Fitzgerald and Dick’s lives, so full of adventure and promise, attempting to make a name for themselves, bring them full circle right back to the United States with nothing to show for their hardships but broken dreams.
  Dick was thought to be one of the brightest young psychiatrists; he had everything going for him and was even exempted from serving in the war because he “was already too valuable, too much of a capital investment to be shot off in a gun,” (123).   He has a promising career laid before him and could probably marry any of a number of very nice, well-bred women, and he chooses the one he is advised against seeing by his mentor, a former psychiatric patient, Nicole Warren.   Nicole’s money gave him entry into the society he had always wanted to be a part of, and as long as Nicole relied on him to take care of her and he felt like he was in control, life was good.   Their life together seemed to almost completely cure Nicole, and as she got better Dick got progressively worse, losing himself in drinking and womanizing.   Dick really has nothing to offer Nicole anymore, and feels more as though he is being kept by Baby Warren and that “it is absurd to keep up the pretense of independence,” (183).   But he still tries to once again establish his professional life, to try...