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
Nicole looks at herself in the mirror, examining her naked body. She knows she looks good, but she is not entirely immune to society’s obsession with “girl-children,” and she feels “a jealousy of youth.” Nicole waits for Tommy’s arrival and enjoys the feeling of being “worshipped again.” She has a breezy confidence as she walks ahead of Tommy through the garden. Nicole “d[oes] not want any vague spiritual romance—she want[s] an ‘affair’; she want[s] a change.”
Fitzgerald places Dick’s obsession with youthful beauty in the wider context of modern society, Hollywood, and the beauty industry, all of which contribute to a culture of worshipping youth. Nicole is not immune to these unrealistic standards and loathes the aging process.
Themes
Tommy pulls Nicole close to him and they look at each other for a while. Eventually Tommy asks, “When did you begin to have white crook’s eyes?” Nicole moves away, offended, saying, “I suppose my grandfather was a crook and I’m a crook by heritage.” She softens when she realizes Tommy meant nothing by it. She tells him that Dick’s gone away, probably with Rosemary, and asks Tommy what she should do. “For the first time in ten years [Nicole] [is] under the sway of a personality other than her husband’s.” She and Tommy begin to kiss. Nicole is surprised by the passion she feels for Tommy and they kiss again before leaving for Nice.
On the one hand, Nicole’s “white” eyes might represent rebirth and renewal as she prepares to leave her life with Dick and launch herself into a new affair. On the other hand, the word “crook” suggests that there is something impure about this new chapter of her life. Nicole refers to her grandfather, who made his money through exploitation, but maybe Nicole is a “crook” because she has essentially sucked Dick’s vitality from him in order to get well. Now she is better, Nicole is ready to cast Dick aside for a new man, like Baby suggested all that time ago.
Themes
During the drive to Nice, Nicole thinks about her “crook’s eyes,” deciding, “better a sane crook than a mad puritan.” She and Tommy stop at a hotel, book a room, and order two cognacs. Tommy’s eyebrows are “arched,” like “an earnest Satan.” They kiss on the bed, and for a few moments Nicole forgets Dick and even Tommy, sinking “deeper and deeper into the minutes and the moment.” Afterward, Tommy goes to the window; there is a ruckus below their hotel room from some loud Americans on a balcony. Coming back to Nicole, he inspects her naked body, laughing at her pale torso and tanned arms.
Nicole’s conclusion, “better a sane crook than a mad puritan,” probably refers to her forthcoming sexual relationship with Tommy. She knows that her affair will be sexually immoral, but feels that it will heal her, particularly from Dick, who has come to represent a sort of sickness in her life. While she and Tommy have sex, Nicole forgets the men in her life entirely, enjoying this moment for herself.
Themes
Tommy finds the hotel room “meagre,” but Nicole declares, “this is a wonderful room.” He doesn’t try “to understand her” and instead goes to the window once more. There are two American sailors and a crowd cheering them on. It appears that they also have two sex workers with them too. As a fight ensues outside, the new lovers decide to leave. Before they do, two American women implore them to open their hotel door—they want to wave goodbye to their military boyfriends, who are leaving to embark the ship, from Nicole and Tommy’s balcony.
From the presence of the soldiers, their distasteful girlfriends, and the sex workers, it is clear that the hotel is pretty low-class. For Nicole, however, their room represents her freedom, and she finds it utterly “wonderful.” Unlike Dick, who always tries to understand and psychoanalyze Nicole, Tommy is content for Nicole to have views that differ from his.
Themes
Get the entire Tender Is the Night LitChart as a printable PDF.
Nicole and Tommy dine in Monte-Carlo that night and then go for a swim under the moonlight. Nicole feels Dick’s influence over her slowly diminishing as she embraces Tommy’s “anarchy” as her lover. She and Tommy wake at three in the morning and decide to drive back to Nicole’s house. She is glad to be back.
Nicole knows that her affair with Tommy will bring “anarchy” into her life, but she chooses this consciously. Nicole earlier described herself as Pallas Athene, the goddess of just war, and perhaps Nicole sees her affair with Tommy as part of a just battle with Dick.
Themes
