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Book 3, Chapter 9
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
Nicole is woken in the middle of the night when the phone rings for Dick. Pleased to be needed again, Dick resolves to help Mary and Lady Caroline, who have been arrested. When he returns a few hours later, he sits on Nicole’s bed and tells her the whole “extraordinary story.” He had picked up Gausse and driven with him to the police station where they learned that the two offenders had dressed up like male sailors in Antibes and picked up “two silly girls,” who’d caused a scene when they’d uncovered the deception.
Mary and Lady Caroline’s “lark” is symptomatic of the fact they are spoiled and feel the need to resort to scandalous behavior in order to create new fun for themselves. Their cross-dressing is considered sexually perverse by Dick and the police officers. It is not clear whether Fitzgerald intended for their behavior to be read as such, but the fact that they were in Antibes—an unfashionable part of town— suggests that they were doing something considered seedy by the standards of their social circle.
Themes
Lady Caroline’s petulant lack of remorse had “confounded” Dick, who told her that she would need to pay the police a large sum in order to be released from the prison. Dick successfully negotiated with the police officers, telling a string of lies in order to present Mary and Lady Caroline as ladies of great standing and importance. When he and Gausse returned the women to their hotel, however, Lady Caroline declared pompously—to the others’ surprise—that she would certainly not be paying Gausse back. In embittered retaliation, Gausse unfurled a long string of insults and stepped forward to trip Lady Caroline. She lay sprawled on the pavement wearing her sailor costume.
Lady Caroline embodies all the worst traits of wealthy expatriates in France: she is stubborn, snobbish, rude, and spiteful. Gausse detests her and what she stands for. The image of an old French hotel owner tripping over a high-class British woman to teach her a lesson might have been amusing to Fitzgerald’s contemporary audience. Nonetheless, Lady Caroline is punished for her sinful behavior.
Themes
On the drive back to Tarmes, Gausse told Dick “I have known many of the great courtesans of the world, and for them I have much respect often, but women like these women I have never seen before.”
Gausse implies that he has less respect for Lady Caroline than for escorts and sex workers. This is meant as a grave insult, considering Lady Caroline’s sophisticated social class.
Themes
