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
The next day, Dick and Nicole go to the hairdressers together, as usual. For Nicole, the salon is just “another little prison,” so when she spots Tommy driving past, she wishes she could join him. When Tommy rushes into the shop, then, Nicole realizes “with a flush of joy that there was going to be some sort of showdown.” Dick appears a few moments later, explaining that he’s agreed with Tommy to “have it other with.” Nicole is forced to leave the hairdressers with her hair “half-cut.”
Nicole feels trapped in her marriage and domestic routine, as if her life with Dick were a “prison.” Nicole expects—and hopes— for there to be some exciting fight or drama between her two suitors, but Dick is quite calm when confronted with Tommy.
Themes
Inside the Café des Alliés, Tommy suddenly announces, “Your wife does not love you […] She loves me.” The two men regard each other, assessing which of them possesses more of Nicole. Asking Nicole for her opinion, Dick listens to his wife tell him that “Things were never the same after Rosemary.” The two men jostle over Nicole and their love for her until the Tour de France passes through the town and interrupts them.
Fitzgerald’s depiction of heterosexual relationships is markedly traditional and patriarchal; the narrator suggests that the men own or possess rights to Nicole. After some time, Dick does ask for Nicole’s opinion, and without saying the words, she chooses Tommy.
Themes
Concerned for Dick, Nicole asks, “Isn’t it true you’re not happy with me any more?” Tommy interrupts impatiently. He wants a fight, but Dick assures him that he and his wife will “talk things over.” Attempting once more to have the upper hand, Tommy warns Dick, “Let it be understood that from this moment […] I stand in the position of Nicole’s protector.” Dick replies saying, “I never did go in for making love to dry loins.” Although “drama” she had hoped for never transpires, Nicole is “happy and excited.” She resists a small urge to “tell Dick all about it,” and watches him walk into the distance.
Fitzgerald presents the fragile masculinity of these two men, each posturing to seem dominant over the other. Tommy appoints himself as Nicole’s “protector,” forgetting, perhaps, that she is quite capable of protecting herself. Dick makes a snide parting comment, aimed at offending both Tommy and Nicole (although Nicole doesn’t seem to notice). “I never did go in for making love to dry loins” suggests that he wouldn’t want to have sex with Nicole, anyway, because she is frigid. Interestingly, for the revised addition of the book, this was one of the only lines that Fitzgerald asked his editor, Malcolm Cowley, to remove—he regretted including a line so offensive and out-of-character for Dick.
Themes
