Tender Is The Night By F. Scott Fitzgerald

In Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald it becomes clear that liquor and riches can transform an extravagant and beautiful individual into a feeble and hollow curmudgeon. Fitzgerald displayed early talents as a writer, but did not have much success during his lifetime. Unfortunately, this led the brilliant author to die with the belief that he was an immense failure. Nowadays, Fitzgerald is vastly known for his capabilities to vividly describe a setting and elaborately construct beautiful characters. These are great gifts to possess for writing fiction, but Fitzgerald was prosperous chiefly for his ability to intricately expose himself through his fictional works. His exposure is a major part of his artistic style, which elicited many

The story commences on the striking French Riviera, and this is where the characters spend most of their time. On the beach, a young actress named Rosemary meets Dick Diver and catches feelings for him. Dick and his wife Nicole invite Rosemary to party with them in Paris. Dick falls in love with Rosemary, but his love for Nicole is deeper. The book continues with the disintegration of love between the Diver couple. To the public eye their marriage is full of adventure and bliss, but as the story matures, the characters’ secrets and lies expose the dark world in which they truly live (Bloom

One style choice being the use of flashbacks to gradually reveal the nature and opinions of his characters. He implements this technique by separating the novel into three books. This method allows Fitzgerald to focus successfully on one character at time. First Rosemary, then Dick, and finally Nicole. This way the reader can extract internal feelings and thoughts of multiple characters at once (Leone 78). However, he rarely uses flashbacks to write most of his fictional works. Instead, Fitzgerald is popular for incorporating a charming, intelligent and sensitive hero into his novels. He regularly presents the hero with a moral judgement that limits the heroes freedoms and possibilities. In Tender is the Night, Dick Diver is this romanticized hero. As Dicks morality fails he begins to work less while becoming more dependent on Nicoles money. He also jeopardizes his life and future by depending on alcohol to solve his problems (Gindin 109-111). Fitzgerald is also vastly known for assimilating his own life into his fiction. Fitzgerald wrote the character of Dick Diver as if he was expressing his own wasted talents, alcoholic problems, and life with a mentally unstable woman (Bloom 10-12). However, the reason for Nicole being mentally unstable was not completely unjustifiable. Nicole's father remorsefully raped her at the age of