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Book 1, Chapter 4
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Tender Is the Night, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Excess, Destruction, and the Failed American Dream
Gender, Mental Illness, and Psychiatry
The Pursuit of Youth and Innocence
Racism and Otherness
Summary
Analysis
That afternoon Rosemary travels to Monte Carlo to visit Earl Brady at his film studio. Sensing almost immediately that he desires her, Rosemary compares him with Dick. Although she doesn’t admire Brady nearly as much, she does feel a “click” between them, and something about him appeals to her “virginal emotions.” Walking around the different sets, Rosemary feels “a spell” upon her; she warms to Europe knowing now that is contains a little corner of Hollywood magic.
Rosemary is inexperienced but she is aware of her own sex appeal and the power it gives her. Fitzgerald thus highlights the irony of society’s obsession with youth and innocence through Rosemary’s performance in the Hollywood movie Daddy’s Girl. In it, she plays the role of an utterly innocent and naive young girl, when she herself is a young woman on the cusp of her own sexual awakening.
Themes
