“Tender Is The Night” Zeigiest
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Tender is the Night Zeitgeist
Francis Scott Fitzgerald wrote Tender is the Night in 1933 right after The Great Depression started in 1929. Tender is the Night reflects the anxiety and disillusionment caused by the Great Depression and, for Fitzgerald personally, Zelda Fitzgeralds breakdown suffered in 1930.
Given the time the book was published, it was given many mixed reviews. Some people loved the fact that the book was a happy, romantic setting in the French Riviera. Others did not like it and were not interested in the complicate marriage of a couple in a romantic place; they were more interested in sad depressing books. Ernest Hemingway accused the Fitzgerald of, “drawing his characters too much upon the templates of real people.” Fitzgerald acknowledged these problems, often wishing that he could have altered the chronology of the book or had been able to rewrite the final section.
There is not so much about the time period that influenced the writing of the book, unlike the events that happened in Fitzgeralds life. There were a couple events that he underwent that greatly influenced many things in the book. After writing The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald in the late 1920s spent some time in the French Riviera.
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During his time there he was hosted by Gerald and Sara Murphy. They were an elegant, graceful and sophisticated couple. They were later the inspiration for the main characters Dick and Nicole Diver in Tender is the Night.
“You dont understand Nicole. You treat her always as a patient because she was once sick.” Book 3, Chapter 11, pg. 308. In the book, one of the characters, Nicole Diver, was abused by her father at an early age, therefore she got sick and developed a fear for men. This resembles the situation in Fitzgeralds life were his wife Zelda Fitzgerald,