Tender is the Night:
Corruption of
Alcohol
By Larissa Naylor
English 12 CP
The Author
• Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald
• Born in 1896 in St. Paul,
Minnesota
• Born into an upper middle class
• Only son of Edward Fitzgerald
and Mary ‘Mollie’ McQuillan
• One sister named Annabel- 5
years younger
• Began writing at St. Paul
Academy
• Enrolled in Princeton University
in 1913
• Married Zelda Sayre in 1920
Fitzgerald's Works
Fitzgerald’s most famous
novels include:
•Tender is the Night
•This Side of Paradise
•The Great Gatsby
•The Love of the Last Tycoon
Tender is the Night
• Published in 1934
• Fitzgerald’s last completed
work
• Setting: mostly in Southern
France and Switzerland
• 1913-1930
• Main Character: Dick Diver
• Major Themes: love,
transformation, alcoholism, and
time
Thesis
In my paper, I illustrated
and explained how abuse of
alcohol effects a person’s
psychological mentality.
Tender is the Night as a
film
• Filmed in Switzerland
• Released on February 1,
1962
• Dick Diver: played by
Jason Robards
• Nicole Diver: played by
Jennifer Jones
• Director: Henry King
• Producer: Henry T.
Weinstein
• Critics quote poor acting
Dick Diver
• Main Character
• The American son
of a clergyman
• Wealthy
psychologist
• Drinks excessively
Nicole Diver
• Dick Diver’s wife
• Heiress to a wealthy
Chicago magnate
• Mentally unstable due
to being sexually
abused by her father
• Mother died when she
was a teenager
Rosemary Hoyt
•
•
•
•
•
Young movie star
Born in America
Educated in France
Travels the world
Falls in love with
Dick Diver
Abe North
•
•
•
•
Friend of Dick Diver
Musician
Drinks his career away
Killed in a New York
Speakeasy
Tommy Barban
• Half-American, half
French-mercenary
soldier
• Falls in love with
Nicole
• Nicole falls for him
by the end of the
novel
Diver vs. Fitzgerald
• Fitzgerald’s wife, Zelda, was
admitted to a psychiatric
clinic for treatment of
schizophrenia
• Fitzgerald had an affair with a
young movie star, Lois Moran
• Friends of the Fitzgerald's can
be related to characters in the
novel
• Like Diver, Fitzgerald drank
excessively
• Fitzgerald died of heart failure
in 1940, at just 40 years old
Bibliography
•
Blazek, William. “Some Fault in the
Plan: Fitzgerald’s Critique of Psychiatry
in Tender is the Night.” Twenty First
century Reading of Tender is the Night.
Ed. William Blazek and Laura Rattray.
Liverpool, L6797 2U: Liverpool
University Press, 2007. 67-84
•
"Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (18961940) ." Books and Writers. Web. 17 Feb
2010.
<http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/fsfitzg.htm>.
•
"Tender is the Night." Sparknotes. Web.
16 Feb 2010.
<http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/tender/c
ontext.html>.