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
Dick tells Franz that he needs to go away on a trip without Nicole and asks him to “keep the peace” while he attends a psychiatry conference in Munich. Dick has no intention of actually attending the congress but heads for Germany the following week.
Dick feels drained by recent events with Nicole and needs some respite. There is a chance that Dick will be able to recover some of his former self with some space from Nicole. Although Franz is very understanding of the matter, Dick feels the need to lie about the congress to his business partner.
Themes
On the flight, Dick realizes how tired he feels after the recent dramas in his family. He dreams of European landscapes and the girls he might find there. Dick’s mind has been shaped partly by the “tawdry souvenirs of his boyhood” but still maintains “the low painful fire of intelligence.”
The narrator suggests that below the shallow illusion of Dick’s promise and prestige, he has very simple desires and pleasures. He soon forgets his family, for example, when imagining the various women he’ll be able to conquer across Europe.
Themes
