An Analysis Of Jazz Women Images In Tender Is The Night

Tender Is the Night was published in1934, which worked Fitzgerald nine years out. Itwas also universally accepted as the most touching story by Fitzgerald. It told the story ofDick Diver, who degenerated from a promising psychiatrist to a drunk obscure village doctor.The story reflected that the prosperity veiled the corrupt influence of money on spirit; thenight was tender but the reality was cruel. It was hard for the protagonists to attain goals andhave true love. The characters were manipulated by the surroundings because of humanweaknesses. It was also a book of women, which embodies women images of the jazz age.This paper will examine the female characters of the novel so as to reveal the characteristicsof the jazz women. It also explores how social convention and economic transformation hadimpact on women’s survival, and Fitzgerald’s ambivalent attitudes towards modern women.This paper is divided into three parts: individualists, materialists and women ofself-reliance.Chapter One discuses those individualists in the novel show their individualities throughtheir unconventional apparel and behaviors. With awakening of self-consciousness, womenbegin to rebel traditional patriarchy and Victorian’s morals and values by their own ways.Nerve breakdown of Nicole and female patients in the clinic is the mute rebellion ofpatriarchal oppress on full development of women’s sanity. Nicole’s recovery andRosemary’s maturity show the decline of patriarchy; Baby Warren is a manly woman; thecook, Auguistine challenges patriarchal authority openly with a butcher’s knife. VioletMckisco sneers at her husband. All of those female characters are hard and uncontrollable.Devilish Lady Caroline, ironic Baby Warren, and practical Mrs. Speers have overturned theVictorian’s angel images. Chapter Two studies how money worship, consumerism andseize-the-day philosophy manifest itself in those materialists. Money worship makes themoneyed-class women arrogant and indifference; it also makes the middle-class womenstrive for fame and money by fair means or foul. Under the influence of hedonism andconsumerism women focus on sensual enjoyment and material satisfaction. Chapter Threeanalyzes women’s self-reliance through economy and emotion. Rosemary is brought up underthe idea of hard work which is the vital principle of middle-class Americans. Baby Warren is a shrewd business woman. They are independent of men in economy. With the independenceof economy, the jazz women attain independence of men in emotion. Nicole frees herselffrom unhappy marriage by divorcing Dick; Rosemary longs for true love and equality insexual relation.Through the study of female characters in Tender Is the Night, the paper reveals thatthose women are the product of the jazz age; their characteristics mirror the whole Americansociety. The portrait of women in the novel reveals author’s simultaneous adulation andadmonition of the modern women. On the one hand Fitzgerald admires self-reliance, courageand worthwhile pursuits of modern women, on the other hand he warns modern women oftheir denying traditional roles under the impact of materialism and consumerism.