An Elegy To The Tragic Personality Of The Jazz Age

There has rarely been another American writer like F. Scott Fitzgerald whose career is so deeply influenced by his life. He wins the name of "the spokesman of the Jazz Age" for his faithful and elaborate depiction of the era's life and thoughts. On the basis of his own experiences, Fitzgerald composes his fourth novel Tender Is the Night which covers the span of nine years from 1921 to 1929. It provides readers with a panoramic picture of the living and spiritual conditions of American middle class during the Jazz Age. And feminism, one of its major themes, bears close linkage with the feminist movement of the era.The story relates the degeneration of Dick Diver, the idealistic psychiatrist. Through his sinking from decency and self-discipline to self-indulgence and obscurity, the author delves in the post-war capitalist world where void, disillusion, suppression and alienation permeate. By means of discussing the factors that lead to the destruction of Dick, Fitzgerald has proposed a series of profound questions.Fitzgerald aims the novel at making research on the bourgeoisie's bewilderment and struggle for outlet in face of economical and moral dilemma. Meanwhile, using his wife Zelda as the model, he has demonstrated how modern women strive for independence, self-improvement and combat patriarchal oppression through the stories of the two major female characters Nicole Diver and Rosemary Hoyt. Anyhow, the novel is not confined to pondering on the reasons that have caused Dick's destruction. Most importantly, it is a meditation upon the author's own life and also the Jazz Age through the perplexity and suppression of the Americans in the post-war modernization.This thesis is focused on Fitzgerald's experimentation with psychoanalytic and feminist techniques in the novel. To a great extent, Tender is an autobiographicalwork which can be taken as the projection of Fitzgerald's spiritual journey onto the characters. This thesis is an attempt to make a careful study on Fitzgerald's experiences with psychoanalysis and feminist movement and how these two elements are interwoven in the novel.