A Psychoanalytical Analysis Of Dick Diver’s Tragedy

Dick Diver is the protagonist of Tender is the Night. From a promising psychological doctor to a charming social prince, then to a person hated by everyone and finally to an average doctor, Dick has seen ups and downs throughout his life. Some comments believe that Dick’s ending is not a tragedy but a self exile which means that Dick chooses to give up what he has obtained and return to his original existence. In this sense, Dick relieves himself from meaningless quest for wealth, beauty and fame and returns to a simple life. But the author of this thesis holds that Dick’s ending is all a personal tragedy caused by his wrong choices which result from his unbalanced personality structure and over narcissism.Some essays have analyzed Dick’s personality structure and narcissism separately. This thesis will combine his personality structure imbalance with over narcissism from Freud’s psychoanalytical perspective. It characterizes two creative points. One is that a fairly systematic and complete series of Freud’s psychoanalytical theories are used, including personality structure, anxiety, Ego defense mechanism and narcissism; the other is that it explores the reasons for Dick’s tragedy by focusing on the development of Dick’s complex relationships with Nicole and Rosemary.Firstly, this thesis is going to give a detailed introduction about how Dick’s personality structure gets unbalanced and urges him to accept Nicole and Rosemary, how Dick’s Ego defense mechanisms work to deal with his anxiety and how they fail. And then this thesis will explore the characteristics of Dick’s over narcissism and the catastrophic outcomes caused by it.The conclusion of this thesis is that the main reasons for Dick’s tragedy are his personality structure imbalance and over narcissism despite the influence of Fitzgerald and the social background on him.