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Tender Is The Night Identity Essay

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The Identity struggle within Modernist literature is, according to Langbaum, where ‘the identity of the author, and his characters, and the distinction between them, has become a problem. This struggle is present within the work of all three authors, whereby the influence of masses and the environmental surroundings strongly influence the identity of the self, particularly in the poetry of Eliot and Ginsberg. The pressure presented by conformity is a key feature that affects identity, resulting in explicit mental trauma, which is particularly evident within the characters in Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night. Although the idea of the ‘masking’ of identity dates back to the Renaissance spectacles of pageantry, during the 20th century there was a growing awareness of identity and the presentation of the self to others; this concept of differing …show more content…

Influence of Masses and City Living on Identity – ELIOT TITN

The contrasting settings of Tender is The Night work to depict the theme of identity. The novel is set in the French Riviera, which aids the presentation of the ‘Upper Class Elite’ and acts as an integral element of the Divers' identities and is instrumental in the construction of their outward appearances. Fitzgerald himself states that ‘One could get away with more on the summer Riviera’, which strongly reflects the attitudes of the characters in the novel. He presents this development of Modernism and the decadent ‘jazz age’ autobiographically, drawing on his own experiences in the Riviera and charting an era where the morals of the Bright Young Things were loosened; in the case of Dick Diver, resulting in alcoholism, which mirrored Fitzgerald's own struggle with alcohol. The Riviera functions as a surreal societal microcosm where the characters are able to rid themselves of their usual identities to become ‘somebody.’ Dick, for example, has not got complete control over his private life and Nicole's mental

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Fitzgerald creates clear distinctions between the upper and lower classes primarily through the use of the valley of ashes. The valley of ashes is nothing but a grey wasteland where “Ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke” but it is also the home of the poor, “The only building in sight was a small block of yellow brick sitting on the edge of the waste land”. This is very much different to East Egg, where the wealth live which is described that “Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water”. This distinct different between settings shows the differences of the classes but also the hollowness of the upper

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Throughout literature the constant theme of identity has been explored, with Northrop Frye even suggesting “the story of the loss and regaining of identity is, I think, the framework for all literature.” For characters, true identity isn’t always apparent, it needs to be searched for. Sometimes the inner struggle for identity stems from ones need for belonging. Whether one finds their sense of identity within friends, family, or in a physical “home”. It’s not always a place that defines identity.

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Born to mixed reviews, Tender is the Night was often referred to as being too frivolous, and why shouldn't it be? Following The Great Depression, a novel whose setting is in the grand French Riviera and centered around the extravagant lifestyle of a seemingly perfect couple seems to only rub salt in the wounds of American hearts. However, it is in this frivolity that the novel truly shines. F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, Tender is the Night, uses the pinnacle of society to highlight human fragility in even the most soundest of structures.   Dick's persistence in courting Rosemary as well as his alcohol related incidents showcase how easily someone can fall from grace.

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In addition, at the turn of the twentieth-century, subjects are awakened to a world of horror which discloses that the nineteenth-century concept of a unified identity is dissolved and instead celebrates the multiplicity and fluidity of evolving and fragmented subjectivities as Stuart Hall writes that the postmodern subject has “no fixed, essential or permanent identity” but rather assumes “different identities at different times” (qtd in Richardson, Smith, Werndly 45). Then, while the traditional gothic plot centres on the theme of identity formation, stressing the necessity of setting the boundaries of the self, postmodern gothic rewrites the conventional perception of identity when it blurs the barriers between self and the other, unveiling the subject’s horror of broader crossing and terror of the abject’s threat to shape our identities: “While the freakish may always have inspired a complex mixture of fear and desire, […] they no longer represent images of what he memorably terms our ‘secret self’, but explicit shape our identities” (Spooner 66).

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In the end, Woolf shows how identify is created in relation to the external world through one’s experiences and interactions with others. It is impossible to become fully aware of one’s natural instinctual self, yet it is not impossible to maintain some degree of dignity under the super-ego’s processes, which Septimus does through suicide and Clarissa does through gaining individuality by the end of the novel. The way in which each character projects a different aspect of the id, ego, and super-ego shows the inescapability of Freudian’s revolutionary ideas during the time Woolf wrote Mrs. Dalloway, and allows for a deeper understanding into the dynamic aspect of identity as a

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The novel “Tender Is The Night” takes place on a beautiful shore of the French Riviera where deferential palms cool its flushed facade and cool breeze sweeps through the short dazzling beach from night right up to dawn. This is a very interesting novel authored by Fitzgerald and can be classified as one of his best writings in history. In this story, the characters of the upper class of the 1930’s are portrayed. The main characters in this story are Dr. Dick Diver, Nicole Diver and Rosemary Hoyt. These three characters are connected to each other in a complicated love triangle which in the end causes Dick a lot of heartache.

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