Previous
Book 2, Chapter 21
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
At the bar that evening with Collis, Dick is “worn away by the events of the afternoon” and decides to take out his frustrations by insulting Italians loudly enough for those around them to hear. Dick receives a note from Rosemary telling him she’ll be waiting for him in her hotel room, but Dick hands the note back to the bell-boy, saying, “Tell Miss Hoyt you couldn’t find me.”
Dick’s mood has darkened, and he becomes increasingly cantankerous during his stay in Italy. The fact that he doesn’t follow through on his plans with Rosemary suggests that, now they have had sex, he is no longer interested in her. He has already “taken some of herself away”—her innocence—and doesn’t stand to gain anything more from her.
Themes
Dick and Collis move to a cabaret bar together. Collis is merry and looking for a good time, but Dick is in the mood to indulge his discontentedness. He drinks a bottle of wine and becomes “pale and somewhat noisy.” Calling over the orchestra leader—who is “a Bahama Negro”—to their table, Dick initiates a bad-tempered row about how much of a tip he’s left.
Dick makes himself sick and unwell from excessive drinking in the bar. He publically humiliates himself when starting an argument with the musician. It is likely that Dick has behaved in this way because he perceives himself as superior to the “Bahama Negro,” revealing Dick’s growing tendency to express his racist views loudly and openly.
Themes
Dick snaps out of his “evil humor” briefly when he sees a pretty girl observing him. He invites her to dance and perceives in her “a suggestion of all the pleasanter English things.” When she heads back to her table and doesn’t return for a while, however, Dick’s sour mood worsens. He provokes Collis into a futile argument and makes them both feel “wretched.”
The only thing able to lift Dick’s terrible, bitter mood is dancing and flirting with a young girl. Being around youthful women seems to help Dick forget his problems, at least for a short while. When the English girl leaves, however, Dick sinks deeper into his mood.
Themes
Drunk and incoherent, Dick finds himself alone in the bar with the vague sense that he is responsible for breaking a row of ceramic dolls on the floor. After paying the check, Dick heads out into the street to hail a taxi but has a disagreement with the drivers about the price of the fare. A stranger on the street insists on translating for Dick, but when he tells the stranger to “Go on away,” the stranger spits at the floor beside Dick. This triggers a “flash of violence” in Dick and he steps forward and strikes the man across the face. The drivers swarm around Dick “waving their arms,” and, in an attempt to fight back, Dick trips and falls to the floor.
Dick is belligerently drunk and causes chaos and destruction wherever he goes—offending people, causing fights, and breaking objects. He is no longer the polite, charming doctor who Rosemary had met on the beach three years before, but a bitter and aggressive drunk. He feels a deep sense of injustice about being overcharged for the taxi ride, despite the fact that he is extremely rich and could easily pay the fare.
Themes
Get the entire Tender Is the Night LitChart as a printable PDF.
The men lead Dick to the police station to settle the matter. Here, the police officer tells Dick that he is to pay the fare that the driver asks and head back to his hotel. “Raging with humiliation” Dick concedes, but before turning to leave he walks up to the man who’d brought him to the police station and punches him so hard across the jaw that the man falls to the floor. The crowd falls upon Dick immediately, hitting and kicking him until his nose is broken, his ribs are smashed, and he loses consciousness momentarily. Dick is thrown into a prison cell and left there alone.
Humiliated by the Italian police—whom Dick considers inferior to him—Dick retaliates by violently attacking the man who had tried to help him outside. With this, Dick releases all the anger and bitterness he has harbored inside of him for months, maybe even years—Dick’s illusionary façade has finally fallen down. Of course, Dick is drunk and not nearly has strong as he feels; he is immediately attacked by the men surrounding him.
Themes
