Nature vs. Technology Theme Analysis

Throughout “Tender,” Kennedy hints at Christine and Al’s desire to keep their home relatively free of modern technology, even at the cost of inconvenience. Although they are still drawn to the natural way of life they once prioritized, having children has pushed Christine and Al to give in to some of the temptations provided by modern technology, such as a television and computer. The lump under Christine’s arm has highlighted that compromise, sending her to the hospital for advanced medical treatments like an ultrasound and biopsy. However, Christine’s experiences with the lump and with her daily family life also indicate that people cannot separate themselves totally from nature, even when they embrace modern lives. Through Christine and Al’s struggle to balance natural and technological ways of life, Kennedy proposes that modern technology, though alluring and sometimes necessary, cannot truly overcome nature.

Christine originally planned to live a simple lifestyle with Al, avoiding modern technology where possible. She claims that nobody could have told her “seven years ago,” presumably before Hannah and Jamie were born, that she and Al would own a television or electric heaters. Although they do have these comforts now—including a computer, on which Al surfs the Internet nightly—she and Al clearly intended to do without them but changed course once they had children. She remembers arguing with Al over building their house with mud walls, in order to avoid any toxic chemicals involved in using cement or other materials. Although mud walls would have been less convenient, she and Al tried to consider “pure environments” and “every bloody thing” about sustainability when planning their future lives. To cook dinner, Christine loads wood into a firebox attached to a wood-burning oven. Although she dreams of owning an electric oven, she and Al must have committed to minimizing their electricity use when constructing the house. She also mentions solar panels installed to provide some electricity, as part of an effort to build a sustainable home. She and Al still keep mostly herbal medicines in their pantry and prefer not to go to the pharmacy or doctor for treatments. Christine is even proud of not having visited a hospital since Hannah’s birth, at least until her recent appointments.

However, after their children were born, Christine and Al accepted more modern technology into their lives. While they had debated mud walls when building their house, she acknowledges that this was only part of a “grand theory of sustainability” that had to be adapted to a more “prosaic reality.” In other words, their idealistic dreams had to make way for the day-to-day demands of family life. And although they have solar panels, their home is now fitted with “an electric system like everyone else’s” and any power from the panels is “just a booster.” Christine sees herbal medicines in the pantry and scoffs at how she and Al would never have imagined giving store-bought medicine to their children, even if that medicine is still natural and homeopathic. Similarly, prior to discovering the lump in her arm, she hadn’t been to the hospital since Hannah was born. Especially when medical care is involved, Christine and Al have accepted modern medicine in addition to using herbal remedies.

Eventually, Al and particularly Christine learn that relying on technology doesn’t actually prevent nature from running its course. Though Christine clearly values the natural world, the lump under her arm shows how nature can act in unpredictable ways. Christine turns to technology—specifically, modern medicine—to try and understand it, but even after the initial ultrasound, the doctor is unable to tell whether the lump is benign or malignant. It remains unclear at the end of the story what treatments she might need after the biopsy. The lump is naturally occurring, but that doesn't make it good; it’s simply something that the family has to confront.

Although the lump is an example of nature causing pain and uncertainty in Christine’s life, she also experiences the persistent beauty and wonder of nature throughout the story. She describes her daughter as a “healthy, respiring” child with “cells [that are] a blur of miraculously multiply and flowering growth.” Essentially, the same kind of biological process that is behind Christine’s tumor is also responsible for the wonder of her children growing healthy and strong. Similarly, when Christine collects materials for Jamie’s diorama from the garden, she becomes calm when she “paus[es] to inhale the deep spicy smell of the lemon-scented gum” and “feel[s] the dew drench her ankles” and compares a “little patch of bush” growing beneath the kitchen window to “a healing scar.” She takes solace in the beauty of the raw wilderness and how it fights to grow and survive regardless of human intervention.

At the end of the story, Christine’s mousetraps do not catch any mice, even though she sets up several around the kitchen. By collecting the mousetraps and resetting them each “with a benign and harmless snap,” Christine symbolically accepts that she cannot use technology to pick and choose which parts of nature to experience. In order to appreciate its beauty, she must also deal with its challenges—both small ones like pests and bigger ones like the lump under her arm. By ending the story on this note, Kennedy conveys that technology can’t fully suppress nature, and that nature must be accepted as a whole, including both ugly and beautiful elements.