Excess, Destruction, and the Failed American Dream Theme Analysis

Set in the 1920s, Tender is the Night depicts a group of wealthy American expatriates traveling around Europe during the Roaring Twenties. This period—between the end of World War I and the Wall Street crash of 1929—was a time of great prosperity in America and Western Europe. Fitzgerald himself coined the term “the Jazz Age” to describe the glamor and decadence of the era. In Tender is the Night, Dick Diver, the ambitious son of a humble minister, embodies the American dream. His charisma and aspirations stand to bring him much success in life, but after years of excessive drinking, decadent parties, and irresponsible decisions, Dick finds himself poor and alone, having destroyed all the relationships that he once valued. Dick’s story thus reveals the central message of Tender is the Night: excess and vice inevitably lead to destruction and downfall.

At the beginning of Book One, Dick is the perfect picture of a modern American man; charming, attractive, and popular, he epitomizes the excitement and possibility of the Jazz Age. Dick’s extraordinary magnetism draws others towards him. Upon arriving to the beach on the French Riviera, Rosemary, a fellow guest at Gausse’s hotel, notices immediately that “whatever [Dick] said released a burst of laughter. Even those who, like herself, were too far away to hear, sent out antennae of attention.” Dick is “kind and charming” and promises “an endless succession of magnificent possibilities.” Through Dick and his wife, Nicole Diver, Fitzgerald brings to life the excess and decadence that characterized the Jazz Age. The Divers “were fashionable people” and “seemed to have a very good time.” Their wealthy expatriate circle spends the first chapters of the book throwing lavish parties and romping around Europe with reckless abandon. However, Fitzgerald reveals fleeting glimpses into the dark side of their sparkling scene through Abe North, who suffers from alcoholism as a result of their immoderate lifestyle. Abe’s self-destruction should serve as a warning to the other characters, but they pay no heed.

Ultimately, Dick’s indulgent and unrelenting pursuit of pleasure costs him his profession, health, popularity, and romantic relationships. There is not one turning point to mark the beginning of Dick’s decline, but there are plenty of warning signs. Finding it difficult to juggle the demands of his marriage with Nicole and his love affair with Rosemary, for example, Dick realizes that he is losing control over both. Dick reflects that Rosemary, as young and immature as she is, is managing their relationship more “authoritatively than he.” Dick experiences another shock when he witnesses Maria Wallis, a vague acquaintance from their expatriate scene, shoot an Englishman in the train station for no apparent reason: “the shots had entered into all their lives: echoes of violence followed them out onto the pavement.” Regardless of the exact moment, by Chapter 20, Dick’s emotional deterioration is well underway—“he was profoundly unhappy” but blind to “what was going on round about him.”

By the end of Book Two, the reader has witnessed the slow and gradual disintegration of Dick’s marriage, characterized by cold silences but punctuated with frenzied arguments. After a violent quarrel that culminates in Nicole trying to drive their car off the road, Dick decides to “go away alone.” While traveling, Dick runs into an old friend, Tommy Barban, who remarks that Dick doesn’t look “so jaunty” as he used to. The night after learning that Abe has died, Dick wakes to a procession of war veterans outside, marching mournfully “with a sort of swagger for a lost magnificence.” This image reminds Dick of his own wasted potential, and symbolizes the loss and sorrow that now characterizes his life: “Dick’s lungs burst for a moment with regret for Abe’s death and his own youth of ten years ago.” Disheveled and saddened, Dick visits Rosemary in Rome, but much has changed between them in the three years since they were romantically involved with one another. After a jealous and angry outburst upon learning about her relationship with her new lover, Nicotera, he admits: “I’m the Black Death […] I don’t seem to bring people happiness any more.”

The chaos and destruction that surrounds Dick climaxes when he gets drunk with his acquaintance Collis Clay that night. Following a row with a musician in the bar, Dick attempts to get a taxi back to the hotel. During a drunken quarrel over prices, however, he is overcome by a “savage” rage and instigates a bloody fight with the driver. When he wakes from unconsciousness, Dick finds himself alone in an Italian prison cell in a “bloody haze, choking and sobbing.” Having lost his job at the clinic—due to his negligence and drinking problem—Dick returns to France with Nicole. They try once more to salvage their broken marriage, but Dick is a shell of his former self and is incapable of loving Nicole and the children with the “inexhaustible energy” he had once personified.

Through the story’s tragic ending, Fitzgerald draws parallels between Dick’s personal ruin and the calamitous end to American prosperity that shook the nation with the financial crash of 1929. The penultimate chapter of the book depicts Dick’s last moments in Europe. He is without “nice thoughts and dreams to have about himself,” as he says goodbye to his children. Indeed, returning to America devoid of the bright ambitions that defined him as a young man, Dick symbolizes the failed American dream. Living in a small American town, far from his family, and without professional prospects, Dick is haunted by the consequences of his own greed and excess. Ultimately, Dick’s sad story becomes a metaphor for the 1920s; reckless hedonism comes at a high cost.