442 Fitzgerald, F. scott
exploits of the Buchanans and their friends but also
through the story’s various settings. The Valley of
Ashes, in its state of decay, juxtaposes the lavish
environs of East Egg and West Egg, New York.
Readers are made aware of the idea of place in the
novel and the manner in which it contributes to the
author’s commentary on social class. Further, Tom
Buchanan’s racist musings will also demonstrate
the complicated link between race and social class
and the way these categories of analysis play out
in the novel. Finally, Fitzgerald suggests through
the Buchanans’ (and other characters’) actions, that
social class is not insignificant and the boundaries
that distinguish social class categories are not easily
overcome.
Carla Verderame
FiTzgEraLD, F. SCoTT Tender Is
the Night (1934, 1951)
First published in four installments of Scribner’s
Magazine in early 1934, Tender Is the Night contains
many autobiographical similarities to Fitzgerald’s
life. It follows the 1925 publication of The Great
Gatsby as his final completed novel. In 1951, a sec-
ond version was published posthumously; these two
versions differ in terms of the novel’s chronology.
The more frequently studied 1934 version, which
was revised 12 times by Fitzgerald without an
altered time scheme, opens in the present and uses
flashbacks, while the 1951 version begins with back-
ground information and proceeds chronologically.
Both versions tell the story of a young psychiatrist
who marries one of his patients and later experiences
another relationship that pushes him to drunken-
ness, disillusion, infidelity, and violence.
The main characters of Tender Is the Night are
Dr. Dick Diver, his wife and former patient Nicole,
and Rosemary Hoyt, an idealistic young woman
who marks a turning point in the doctor’s life while
vacationing on the French Riviera. Through this
triangle, Fitzgerald presents complicated relation-
ships and the effects of their blurred boundaries:
relationships like those between doctor and patient,
husband and wife, parent and child, and lover and
beloved. Alienation, ethics, illness, love, and
sex and sexuality are important themes explored
through these three individuals and their unique
bonds.
Tender Is the Night shows how relationships
with others may inspire stagnation or change. With
Nicole, Dr. Diver stays unfulfilled and lonely, while
with Rosemary, he becomes desirous and restless.
Alone, he is his own man, albeit a bit lost.
Erica D. Galiotoalienation in Tender Is the Night
The theme of alienation most potently summarizes
Tender Is the Night in its entirety. Indeed, Fitzger-
ald’s novel revolves around Dr. Dick Diver and his
experience of alienation, or separation from himself
and from others. This alienation can be divided into
two main sections: before Dick meets Rosemary
Hoyt and after he meets her. Before Dick meets
Rosemary, he is certainly alienated from himself and
from others, but he seems largely ignorant of this
fact. After marrying his former psychiatric patient
Nicole and for the six years of their marriage prior to
his meeting Rosemary, Dick appears alienated from
others and from his own personal and professional
desires. This alienation stems from his unethical
union with Nicole.
When Dick and Nicole marry, their relation-
ship continues to resemble the relationship between
doctor and patient. As such, Dick concerns himself
primarily with Nicole and her thoughts and emo-
tions, rather than his own. Because psychiatrists
are supposed to remain neutral in their professional
relationships, Dick maintains this neutrality with his
wife. He purposely alienates himself from his own
emotions to heal her, so there is a separation in their
romantic relationship. Dick must always hold back
his own emotions to protect his wife from unpredict-
ability, and he must react to her behavior rather than
initiating his own. Unable to be completely truthful,
relaxed, and intimate, they are alienated from each
other as husband and wife and know each other only
as doctor and patient. This separation not only works
a wedge in their marital relationship, but it also sepa-
rates Dick from his own identity. By withholding his
own emotions for the good of Nicole’s continued
treatment, he also sacrifices himself.
Nicole, as wife and patient, is at the center of
Dick’s world, and so he sidelines his own pro-