Scott Fitzgerald's character Dick Diver from "Tender is the Night" takes on characteristics of both Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway from "The Great Gatsby." Two sources. MLA.
Character Analysis of Dick Diver
Scott Fitzgerald was a mosaic of the characters he created. Fitzgerald, himself, can be found in Jay Gatsby, Nick Callaway, and Dick Diver. His own personal history reflects those he gave his characters, drinking habits, social status, and affluence (Brief pg). The life style of the 1920's in Paris is one that Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda experienced and is woven into his novel "Tender is the Night." Fitzgerald's stories often reveal the lives of the 'have's and 'have nots,' the lifestyle and near decadence of the rich compared to the common middle classes (Brief pg). Moreover, Fitzgerald always seems to distinguish between the 'old money' and the 'new,' the aristocrats and the nouveau rich. His writings reflect his awareness of his own middle class status and his struggle to overcome humble beginnings. Fitzgerald seems to model his 'old money' characters after Zelda's family and acquaintances, the comfortably rich, accustomed to protocol for all occasions (Brief pg). A theme that rings in most of Fitzgerald's work is one of inevitable truth. That no matter how successful one becomes, no matter how much money one may earn, no matter how well one learns to use the power of money and status, the true self inevitably surfaces sooner or later. Jay Gatsby, Nick Callaway, and Dick Diver all experience this moment of truth when they can no longer deny who and what they are.
Fitzgerald's character, Dick Diver, in "Tender is the Night," is a Yale graduate just as his character, Nick Callaway in "The Great Gatsby," is a Yale grad. Diver shows the same strengths in the beginning of the novel that Nick possesses. Both are educated, compassionate, and dedicated to achieving success in their chosen fields. Both demonstrate the care-taker role, often the confidant, often the one who cleans up the messes in the lives of those around...
Fitzgerald wrote his novel during an era which clearly indicated that living in an unreasonable manner, making all sorts of abuses and excesses, recklessly without any kind of consideration has serious and in the same time damaging effects upon people's lives. Immediately after the First World War, the social and political climate reached an energetic climax during the roaring twenties. With a new focus on individualism and the pursuit of
Scott Fitzgerald Hollywood Years The turning point in F. Scott Fitzgerald's life was when he met in 1918 Zelda Sayre, herself an aspiring writer, they married in 1920. In the same year appeared Fitzgerald's first novel, "This side of paradise," in which he used material from The Romantic Egoist. Its hero, Armory Blaine, studies in Princeton, serves in WWI in France. At the end of the story he finds that his
Scott Fitzgerald's novels depict women as the survivors of the post Great War world. Essentially women, to Fitzgerald, seem to be the ones emerging from the moral emptiness of the First World War into positions of increasing power; however, it does not seem that Fitzgerald, in general, approves of this trend. Largely this is because he believes that the growing levels of power and autonomy that women are being
Fitzgerald and Hemingway The writings of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway have quite a lot to do with one another. Besides the fact that both men were writing during the same historical period in time, both men were interested in some of the same themes and expressed their feelings through their writings. Two novels, F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night and Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, deal with
In real life, the social whirl Dick and Nicole create in a backwater French resort area parallels the real life story of the Murphys, who were American expatriates who lived in "Villa America" on the French Rivera long before it became fashionable (Pelzer 106). Fitzgerald found them a blend of "old graces" and "new money," and it seems that some of the more perverse and corrupt of the novel's
Fitzgerald contrast Americans and Europeans. The characters and the development of events in Tender is the Night are strongly influenced by the historic period the author along with the whole world were going through. Fitzgerald's own experience of living in Europe after the First World War along with his concerns and the problems he encountered as an expat find their echo in the novel. The relationship between the Americans and the
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