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
When Dick arrives at the hotel that night, Baby, Nicole, and Marmora are waiting for him in anticipation. Marmora’s parents join them at dinner, and Dick understands that they are very wealthy. Baby is intent on speaking with Dick and thanking him for the part he played in Nicole’s recovery. Baby also implores him to explain how she’s supposed to know when Nicole is slipping into craziness and when she’s just being eccentric. Dick tries to reassure her, “Nothing is going to be crazy—Nicole is all fresh and happy, you needn’t be afraid.”
Baby seemingly has no idea that Nicole’s illness was caused by their father’s sexual abuse, and is therefore frustrated and confused by Nicole’s spells of ill health. She is concerned about Nicole’, to a certain extent, but also desires a simple solution and an easy fix. Dick is calm and reassuring, describing Nicole as “fresh,” which again has connotations of renewal and lightness.
Themes
Baby continues by describing her future plans for Nicole. Baby hopes to move her sister back to Chicago where they can immerse her in the “stuffy” social scene there and find her “some good doctor” to marry. Dick can barely control his laughter—“the Warrens were going to buy Nicole a doctor.” When Baby points out that Nicole has disappeared, citing this as an example of her peculiar behavior, Dick decides to go and look for her.
Dick is aghast at the suggestion that the Warrens—accustomed to throwing their vast wealth at problems—are actually considering offering a suitable young doctor wealth and security in exchange for marrying Nicole. In their tendency to buy their way out of problems, the Warrens represent new money, privilege, and power.
Themes
Dick finds Nicole outside, looking over the lake. She apologizes for being antisocial but explains that she’s become accustomed to “living quietly.” When Nicole asks Dick whether he might have been interested in being with her, had it not been for her illness, he evades the question, and then tells her he “couldn’t fall in love.” But Dick’s rationality becomes futile when Nicole presses her body against his and demands him, in a low voice, to give her a chance. They kiss, and Dick feels as though they are “an indissoluble mixture, with atoms joined and inseparable.”
Dick understands Nicole in a way that others haven’t been able to; he recognizes that living in the clinic has isolated her and that social situations are now overwhelming for her. He tries to resist his desires for her, but Nicole seduces him.
Themes
As Dick and Nicole kiss in the darkness, it begins to rain. A storm booms overhead and they are forced to return to the others. Walking back to his hotel in a borrowed raincoat, Dick curses himself and the idea of marrying “a mental patient.” Angered by the thought of Baby and her father buying some doctor for Nicole, Dick resolves not to be trapped in their scheme. That night, however, he is kept awake by the thought of Nicole and her breath-taking beauty—“nothing had ever felt so young as her lips.”
The storm that interrupts Dick and Nicole kissing could be interpreted as a warning or emblem of danger and darkness ahead. Indeed, Dick is angry with himself for giving into his temptations and reduces Nicole to her illness when unkindly referring to her as some “mental patient.” He is also sickened by the idea that he might become a victim of the Warren family’s scheme to find Nicole a doctor husband. Thinking of Nicole and her youthful beauty, however, Dick finds it difficult to stay mad at her.
Themes
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Upon returning to his hotel after a hike the next day, Dick finds two letters waiting for him. One is from Nicole, explaining that their kiss was “the nicest thing that ever happened to” her. The other is from Baby, asking Dick to travel with Nicole to Zurich and drop her back at the clinic. Dick is “furious,” believing Baby’s actions to be part of an elaborate plan to “throw [Dick and Nicole] together.” In fact, Baby had no such intentions, and was merely using Dick “innocently as a convenience.” Nonetheless, when Dick drops Nicole back to the clinic, he realizes that “her problem [is] one they ha[ve] together for good now.”
Baby Warren has no intention of selecting Dick as a suitor for Nicole. No doubt she considers it inappropriate, because he was Nicole’s doctor, but also because Baby is probably not impressed with Dick’s lack of wealth or social standing. Nonetheless, Dick misinterprets her letter as part of a deliberate plan to make him fall in love with Nicole. Regardless of Baby’s intentions, Dick finds himself in love with Nicole by the end of the train ride and resigns himself to the fact that her problems were now his. There is a sense that this might be his undoing, or the cause of his downfall.
Themes
