Tender is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald Reading Notes and Analysis

Tender is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald

\\ The final edition of the book, printed in 1956 by ‘Charles Scribner’s Sons’.

I chose to read this book, because I’m partly interested in psychology and human behavior, and this book is a wonderful psychological novel.
The book starts by describing the life of its protagonist – Dick Diver – a young and ambitious student in psychiatry, doing his studies in Vienna in wartime. Dick is a bright student, and is living his “heroic period”, being “the lucky Dick”(the author hints about the decay that he will later experience). Dick’s personality is ideal – I recently read a book called “Your erroneous zones” by the psychologist Wayne Dyer – and the protagonist is exactly the “perfect person” described by Dyer – a man that faces his fears, attractive, with no addictions, concentrated on his studies, striving for his goals. In the end of the book, he will turn into the exact opposite thing, hardly explainable why.
In Chapter I the author points, that Dick was in Europe, but evaded the terror of the war – maybe it’s his luck again. This impresses the thought that Dick hasn’t gone through enough difficult life-experiences, and it’s later affirmed by his thoughts:
“And Lucky Dick can’t be one of these clever men; he must
be less intact, even faintly destroyed. If life won’t do it for him it’s
not a substitute to get a disease, or a broken heart, or an inferiority
complex, though it’d be nice to build out some broken side till it
was better than the original structure.”

To further emphasize on this, the author quotes Thackaray: “The best I can wish you, my child, is a little misfortune.”

Chapter I ends by the author’s words: “Best to be reassuring Dick Diver’s moment now began.”
“Dick’s moment” may be falsely decoded by the reader as adventures, big advancement, and something positive on the whole, but as it was hinted before – this actually the highest point of Dick’s life and from here his life will turn unexpectedly, which will later lead to a deterioration and corruption that the protagonist won’t find powers to recover from. Using the same metaphor, Dick will not rebuild his broken side, but on the opposite, he will turn into a ruin and shrink into a quiet existence, forgetting about his ambition to become “the best psychiatrist in the world”.

In Chapter II Dick meets his future partner Franz Gregorovius, and the reader is passively introduced to Nicole – a schizophrenic girl, which will become Dick’s spouse.

Franz and Dick lead a brief conversation about the war and its effects on Dick. Dick says that he has practically seen nothing of the war, and Franz points that there are some people in his clinic, which were affected only by hearing the bombs hit from a distance.
This again stiffens the thought that Dick hasn’t gone through much hard times, but also suggests that he possesses a stronger personality, of course expected, by the patients of the clinic.

There is some cynicism expressed by Franz who says: “But, we’re a rich person’s clinic we don’t use
the word nonsense.” – which means that although otherwise dedicated doctor, even Franz is partly corrupted and dependent on capitalism’s unwritten laws. If the clinic was for poor people, would they not auto-censure themselves? The attitude to the rich and poor is different, the equality that some sought into communism is a mirage even for these who trust in what they do.

The conversation then turns to Nicole’s case and Dick’s relation to her. The reader understands now why Book I is called “Case History”, and sees the beginnings of the romance between Dick and her. Maybe its not only her “Case History”, but the history of their case that Book I is about.

The reader is also given the correspondence, but only from Nicole’s side, the one which Franz has partially read in order to help her and later stopped for moral reasons as she improved.

The letters serve to show her bad condition at the beginning and then her progress, realization and acceptance of problems, and strong desire to live a life of full value – she even asks Dick several times if he could find her a job as a translator.

In Chapter III we are given the history of her entering the hospital and the underlying reasons for her condition.

The reader is introduced to Devereux Warren – Nicole’s father, a rich contractor, who sailed across the Atlantic to cure, or maybe just to get rid of his mentally sick daughter. Devereux is described by Dr. Dohmler as a “strikingly handsome man looking less than forty.
He was a fine American type in every way, tall, broad, well-made
“un homme tres chic””, idealistic almost like Dick in a way, until this utopian understanding is crashed by the breath of whiskey, his uncertain talk and the lies that it suggests.

Dohmler detects his lies in the very beginning. Warren emphasizes on the words (I was)”a father and mother to her” repeating them twice, suggesting for their closeness, and his devotion over her.
Later he seeks for Dohmler’s approval as if trying to bring him on his side, and not reveal the ugly truth behind the “valet” story.

The reader is given the diagnosis of Nicole – schizophrenia, a condition that one can never fully recover from. We might pity then, the promising young psychiatrist Dick, for his choice to jump into a relationship with such a problematic girl, when he could have pretty much any girl he wants, and fill the need of love with much less problems.

Devereux Warren turns out to be quite an irresponsible parent, opposite to his words that Nicole was his favorite child, and tries to leave for the US without notice, when Dohmler makes the distant call to his hotel. We understand by that that he actually doesn’t care that much for Nicole’s condition, neither he has bring her there, because Dohmler is the best psychiatrist in the world – but because he wanted to dump her somewhere, where she could not tell the ugly truth of their sexual relationship; to bury the shame, by banishing Nicole and the consequences of his actions.

Warren finally confesses his shame to Dohmler, who expected it, but was still disgusted. Warren has had sexual relationship with his small daughter, which turned out to be devastating for her psychological health. Dohmler, a man who comes upon all kinds of stories and cases on a daily basis, doesn’t manage to hold his emotions this time and judges Warren by calling him a “Peasant” even though only in his head.

In the next Chapter IV we are given even more information of Nicole and her unexpected recovery. It turns out that Dick was something of a pillar for her, “gave her somebody to think of outside”, as Franz points out.

The reader is also given the thought pattern by which Nicole fell into that state, and in the end of it, Franz thought, she slided “into a phantom world where all men, the more you liked them and trusted them, the more evil”.

But Dick is obviously an exclusion of that rule. She felt an emotional affection to him, confided in him to some extent, and expressed “the worries of a lover”, as written in the III Chapter.

Franz warns Dick to be careful to her and after a joke that Gregorovius couldn’t catch, Franz asks him what are his plans, on which Dick proudly answers: “I’ve only got one, Franz, and that’s to be a good psychologist maybe to be the greatest one that ever lived.”
Reading it at this stage of the book, Dick’s “plan” seems ambitious, but with the previous information given on his devotion to his studies, the reader might suggest that it is in the area of possibility, and maybe that is “the moment” Dick was destined for? Sadly, not. In the end of the book this will be just an unfulfilled dream, a chimera – childish wishful thinking, that could have never been accomplished.

To further emphasize on this, Fitzgerald gives a brief account of the never-fulfilled-plan or dream of Franz which he had at the age of Dick(he is a little bit older, though they were fellow-students with Dick). In his “brave” years Franz wanted to go to America with Dick and establish a modern clinic for billionaires. Indicative for Dick’s plan also, this once possible plan is now just thrown aside easily with the summarization “students talk” by Franz.

Franz could have achieved it, and could still do it. But he decided to sacrifice that dream for something else – love and family, even though they lack “grace and adventures”.
Dick is later invited to a dinner with Franz and his wife, where he is exposed to the family idyll, that he will dislike but only initially.
He thinks that “the boundaries of asceticism were differently marked he could see it as a means to an end, even as a carrying on with a glory it would itself supply, but it was hard to think of deliberately cutting life down to the scale of an inherited suit. ” Ironically later in the book he will quite deliberately cut his life down to an even smaller scale and will, in a different meaning, get into an inherited suit, relying solely on Warren’s money, and thus losing his independence and dignity.

In the previous chapter, Franz noted that Dick is very attractive to women, and now Fitzgerald points that he also has great social skills, he “made Kaethe Gregorovius feel charming”. He will demonstrate those skills better at the dinner in Villa Diana, being the hit of the night, controlling all the conversations, making everybody feel comfortable. That suggests that Dick is a very charismatic person, but also that he has that need to make everybody to like him.
And that is the superficiality he fears, and later gives up to.

The chapter ends in a pretty interesting way:
“The truth was that for
some months he had been going through that partitioning of the
things of youth wherein it is decided whether or not to die for
what one no longer believes. In the dead white hours in Zurich
staring into a stranger’s pantry across the upshine of a street-lamp,
he used to think that he wanted to be good, he wanted to be kind,
he wanted to be brave and wise, but it was all pretty difficult. He
wanted to be loved, too, if he could fit it in.”

Dick expresses here for the first time his doubts that psychiatrist is what he is really meant to be. In one of the next chapters, he will shamelessly confess to Franz that he chose to become a psychiatrist in a quite random way – because of a girl that went into the same lectures. Although his ambitions are connected with the subject, he is not sure if that is what he really wants to do with his life. He is sure that he wants to be perfect, but he gets to fear the difficulties, and is not sure if that will make him happy He delicately inserts that “he wanted to be loved, too”. Loved by whom? A spouse? Or everybody else – maybe that is his ultimate dilemma.

Chapter 5 is devoted to depict the first two dates between Dick and Nicole, which turn out to be romantically wacky, or the opposite. Instead of coming and taking the lady like a gentleman, he is accompanied by Franz, and she – by a nurse.

They spend some time together and find that they fit perfectly. Fitzgerald narrates: “She smiled, a moving childish smile that was like all the lost youth in the world.” , “Dick whenever he turned toward her she was smiling a little, her face lighting up like an angel’s when they came into the range of a roadside”, “Dick wished she had no background, that she was just a girl lost with no address save the night from which she had come.” – those passages serve to show what Dick really found in Nicole; and moreover – what he seeks in a woman. He is in love with her youth, and childish beauty, and the little romance they have.

He will later find those same qualities in the 18y.o. actress Rosemary, and that is how she is going to attract him. Although he marries and has children, sustainable affection is not what he is prone to look for, nor attached to. It is the transitive feeling of being in love with a young and innocent creature, that really turns him on. He won’ realize that soon it will play its role into his degradation and self-destruction. By now Dick is presented like an almost ideal person, who has no addictions; At the end of the book he starts abusing with alcohol, but before that he becomes a victim of his own carnal and romantic preferences which are somehow entwined and are a temptation he can’t resist. This addiction turns out to be even more devastating than alcohol.

Dick is pretty mature and does not give up himself to amusements by this point; His father was a clergyman and he was most likely educated in discipline, privation and spirituality. Maybe its that “hole” he fills by being attracted by the complete opposite of mature qualities.

Chapter 6 describes Dick’s internal conflict – to stay or not with Nicole. The chapter starts with the author emphasizing on Nicole’s fortune, as Dick senses a man staring at her expensive clothes, and that is not accidentally – later her wealth will be of major significance, when Baby Warren will try to bribe him, “to buy Nicole a doctor” and he will lose his sense of independence, when the investment in the future clinic with Franz and Villa Diana will be financed with the money of the Warrens, further solidifying the notion that he is “owned” by them.

This experience also servers to show again Dick’s social skills, always controlling the situation with meta-language, sensing the impolite looks and interfering in the right way go get them out of the uncomfortable situation.

Dick shares his intention to write a book, by combining all the pamphlets already written – “Psychology for psychiatrists”, but Franz doesn’t like the idea.
Dick makes the confession that he chose to become a psychiatrist only because of a girl that went into the same lectures at Oxford, which suggests that Dick could have chosen some other subject to study in which he is more interested. Here the reader again senses that Dick is not truly fulfilled with his current occupation, though he has ideas and ambitions.
Franz tries to confront him for his intention to write the “Psychology for Psychiatrists”, but Dick skillfully diverts his attack, which makes Franz silent and change the subject of conversation to Nicole.
Dick states to him that he is attracted to her, and he may “devote his life to her” which makes Franz perplex. Finally, Dick agrees they to go to Dr. Dohmler, and do what he says. On the way he feels some strange feeling of control over the situation, which he compare to one of his experiences as a child.

“The professor, his face beautiful under straight whiskers, like a vine-overgrown veranda of some fine old house, disarmed him. Dick knew some individuals with more talent, but no person of a class qualitatively superior to Dohmler.
Six months later he thought the same way when he saw Dohmler dead, the light out on the veranda, the vines of his whiskers tickling his stiff white collar, the many battles that had swayed before the chink-like eyes stilled forever under the frail delicate lids”

It is strange here – Dohmler’s death has no meaning connected to the plot of the book. This parallel serves maybe to make the whole atmosphere of the book darker, to show that things on the whole are going to get worse from now on.

The three men – Dohmler, Franz and Dick start the conversation about Nicole’s affection to Dick and vice versa. When Dick confesses that he might marry her, Franz sharply protests with the argument that Dick will have to be both a husband and a doctor to her and that their marriage is going to collapse on the very first problem.
Later in the book we see that their marriage manages to survive through some hard times, but Dick truly faces the problem with looking at Nicole from two aspects – one of a husband, and one of a psychiatrist.
Dick surrenders to Franz’s reason and at the beginning of Chapter VII it is announced that Dick is going to delicately retreat from Nicole’s life.

On their next meeting they get to talk about the trip that she will take with her sister – Beth “Baby” Warren. Dick uses that conversation to imply that they will not meet again. He tells her that she will be happy in America, she will fall in love(apparently with someone else), thus showing her that they have no future and this is probably the last time they meet. He insults her, by talking about her condition, and ruins her hopes. But that is uneasy for him also, as he is not quite sure that he wants to leave her.

In a desperation, a thought passes through her head to tell him how rich she is, thus making herself look more valuable in his eyes, and fortunately, she represses herself. That brings again the theme of money and class division and the doors that they may open.

After dinner he decides to end the whole thing, but Nicole has already understood his intentions and refuses to go out with him again. On one side, he is relieved from the eventual burden she might have turned, but on the other he is not sure if that was really the right thing to do. It’s a battle between mind and heart.

Franz calms him that she has been doing relatively well the next two days, which as it is stated, hurts Dick’s vanity, because she had overcome him so easily – something he hasn’t yet done.

The next Chapter VIII starts describing the bad taste the whole story left in Dick’s mouth. He feels used by Franz and Dohmler as an instrument to fix her, and after that they just had to end their relationship, though he thought he have some serious intentions about her. Of course, as expected, this is not the end of their romance.

Very soon he sees her again and this time he is certain about his passion to her. He decides not to allow this feelings to overwhelm him, and uses the so-called antidotes – the “telephone” girl he had a brief romance with, before Nicole and arrangements for going back in the US in August. Obviously, the thought of Nicole Warren has become such a problem that he has to comfort himself to overcome it.

The other way Dick plans to forget her is by working hard – he feels he needs a routine work that will help for that. The next two or three pages are passive diversion from Dick and Nicole’s case, describing him peddling and getting on a mountain-climbing car, soothing the suspense until he runs into Nicole and a friend of hers – Conte de Marmora, with whom she turns out to be intimate, but nothing serious.

“The delight in Nicole’s face to be a feather again instead of a
plummet, to float and not to drag. She was a carnival to watch
at times primly coy, posing, grimacing and gesturing sometimes
the shadow fell and the dignity of old suffering flowed down into
her finger tips. Dick wished himself away from her, fearing that he
was a reminder of a world well left behind. He resolved to go to
the other hotel.”

Dick is charmed by her change. She is back to life, and moreover – enjoying it to the fullest. Dick fears that he might harm her with his presence; or he fears from his growing affection for her. He decides to stay at another hotel. Seeing her so lovely and healthy and with another man maybe makes him jealous to some extent, but he doesn’t yet show it. Later in the book he will feel much stronger jealousy for Rosemary, and will become obsessed with the thought of her having sex with a friend of Collis Clay in a train.

When they get off the mountain-climbing car, Dick goes to take his bicycle but finds Nicole beside him, asking him if he won’t stay at the same hotel. She invites him to come for dinner, but then Nicole’s sister – Beth interrupts them. Nicole introduces them – she is “tall and confident”, “formidable and vulnerable”.

Dick promises to come for dinner – which practically makes pointless his staying at a different hotel. Dick starts to slip, the “antidotes” were of no help.

Chapter IX starts with the sentence “They were waiting for him and incomplete without him.”
Keeping in mind that the last sentence of the previous chapter impressed that Nicole was deeply in love with Dick, it is surprising why is it “They”? Certainly, Marmora is not the one, who feels “incomplete”. “They” maybe refers to the proposition Beth will address to Dick – to be bought by the Warrens as a doctor and husband for Nicole. The description after the brief game with the “wireless“ transmit from the corners, suggests that Beth is also to some extent captivated by Dick’s charisma and is sexually interested in him:

“But Baby Warren wanted to talk to Dick, wanted to talk to
him with the impetus that sent her out vagrantly toward all new
men, as though she were on an inelastic tether and considered that
she might as well get to the end of it as soon as possible. She crossed
and recrossed her knees frequently in the manner of tall restless
virgins.”

Dick and Baby lead a conversation about Nicole’s mental health. Beth expresses her worries about Nicole’s “eccentric” deeds and Dick calms her. This discussion seems like a cover for what’s following.

“Baby shifted her knees about she was a compendium of all the
discontented women who had loved Byron a hundred years before,
yet, in spite of the tragic affair with the Guards officer, there was
something wooden and onanistic about her.”

Dick compared Beth to a “restless virgin”, and now he feels her “onanistic”. This dirtiness will
maybe symbolizes the corruption in her.

Beth proceeds with the important matter – “Actually I have a plan”. Her attitude is like of a business woman, and reminds of Nicole’s instinct to emphasize on how rich and classy her family is in order to keep Dick with her. Obviously, that’s the way the generations of Warrens are used to solve problems of any kind.

It is not an accident that she starts the conversation with the division of Chicago to a North and South side – symbolizing the high and middle class and delicately pointing to which one her family belongs.

Dick bursts in laughter in the first moment he hears what Beth’s plan is; it seems ridiculous to him now, but very soon he will feel himself caught in Warrens’ spider web, weaved by money. He does not yet realize that he is the doctor that Beth wants to buy for Nicole.

Dick goes out to check where Nicole is and finds her between two lamps in front of a romantic view in the Alps, expecting him. She tells him that she wanted to stay alone for a moment and that these social events doesn’t seem to have a good effect on her. Dick reminds himself that she was “re-educated” by Dohmler and his predecessors’ dogmas, and realizes that they had flaws.
He makes her a compliment that she takes too deep. She asks him, embarrassed, if he would like a girl like her, if she had no mental problems.

“He was in for it now, possessed by a vast irrationality.” Dick loses control over himself, though not over the conversation, yet. He tries to change the topic with a fun story, but is stopped by Nicole’s exclamation “Bull”(shit), which startles Dick.
She bursts, confessing her affection towards him, and affirming that she is fine now. That makes Dick even more uncomfortable. He feels the loss of control over the situation now, and would maybe confess his feelings too, if it weren’t Baby Warren’s proposition. Dick lies that he can’t fall in love with her. He gets even more confused in the “anarchy” when she answers that he won’t give her a chance. Nicole maybe crazy, but she sure knows what she wants, and does not feel ashamed to take the lead and kiss him.

And that is the final step to Dick’s “capitulation”. He is the weak now, she is in the stronger position, and she knows how to use it to retain and even increase his interest, retreating from the battle as a winner.

After a romantic confession, a storm causes them to get back in the restaurant.

A whole paragraph is dedicated to the storm, describing its crudeness and anger, bringing harsh atmosphere right after the climax moment :

“Suddenly there was a booming from the wine slopes across the
lake; cannons were shooting at hail-bearing clouds in order to break
them. The lights of the promenade went off, went on again. Then
the storm came swiftly, first falling from the heavens, then doubly
falling in torrents from the mountains and washing loud down the
roads and stone ditches; with it came a dark, frightening sky and
savage filaments of lightning and world-splitting thunder, while
ragged, destroying clouds fled along past the hotel. Mountains and
lake disappeared the hotel crouched amid tumult, chaos, and darkness.”

The storm is like an allegory of Dick and Nicole’s (oncoming) story. “The lights went off and went on again” – Dick left her once, but then got back to her. “the storm came swiftly, first falling from the heavens” – all of a sudden Nicole ended up in Dick’s arms “with atoms joined and inseparable”, the experience was like a spiritual orgasm for both of them. And then “came a dark, frightening sky”, “world-splitting thunder”, “crouched amid tumult, chaos, and darkness.” referring to the experiences that Dick and Nicole will have, especially Dick’s degradation and solitude in the end.
The night is tender, but what the day will be?

When entering the vestibule, a thought flies across Dick’s mind: “. . . For Doctor Diver to marry a mental patient? How did it happen? Where did it begin?” It is meant to express Dick’s worrying about the opinion of the others. The thought is like a gossip between his patients. Dick obviously doesn’t pay much attention to it.

Going to his hotel, Dick thinks about Baby Warren’s intention to buy Nicole a doctor, and that he won’t be that doctor.

The next day Dick finds two letters in his room – one from Nicole, and one from her sister.
Nicole informs him that the last night was “the nicest thing that ever happened” to her.

The next letter, from Baby Warren, asks him for a favor – to accompany Nicole to the sanitarium.

Dick gets furious. He is already introduced to the cunning plans of Baby and suspects that she intentionally tries to “throw them together”, but this is not the truth. Beth wants only to use him, and them throw him out, just like the way Dohmler and Gregorovius used him and then almost forced him to leave her.

The chapter, and Book I, end with the sentence: “They made no love that day, but when
he left her outside the sad door on the Zurichsee and she turned
and looked at him he knew her problem was one they had together
for good now.” – suggesting that, unlike the previous time he missed the opportunity, Dr. Diver is now sure that he will marry her, and will embark on the oppressive task to be a lover and a doctor to her simultaneously.

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