On The Collapse Of American Dream In Tender Is The Night

Tender Is the Night is Fitzgerald's last completed novel published in 1934, on which the author worked the hardest. Strangely this book never gained as much preeminence as the previous novel The Great Gatsby.Though it met with mixed reviews in the critic circle, with the elapsing oftime, instead of being left in oblivion, Tender Is the Night is among the first thirty best novels of the 20th century selected by Modern Library.Many early critics thought that the novel was a failed one, which lacked focus due to its unchronological plot arrangement. Actually they had focused much upon the structure, simultaneously ignoring the novel'sreal connotation. Like The Great Gatsby, Tender Is the Night unfolds thecomplete struggling process, from pursuit of dreams to the final loss ofdreams. Unlike The Great Gatsby, in which there still exists the twinkle of hope, Tender Is the Night is empty of hope. In this regard, Tender Is the Night criticizes the American dream, on a deeper level, poignantly and pessimistically.Tender Is the Night is a product of Fitzgerald's deep meditation about the mundane world. Though some critics held the view that the novel was flawed too much by the autobiography of Fitzgerald himself, this thesis argues that Fitzgerald's own experiences and perceptionscontribute much to the novel's meaning. In the novel, Fitzgerald well expresses his very woe for the elapsing of the good old days and his deep helplessness for the collapse of the American dream.This thesis interprets Tender Is the Night through the discovery off theorigin of the American dream and its historical development, togetherwith Fitzgerald's own experiences, which is the background of the creation of the novel, and by the discussion upon the process in which the protagonist Dick Diver is doomed to corruption, unfolds the novel's theme—the collapse of the American dream. Dick is a well-educated...