Tender Is the Night is considered to be one of the most remarkable works by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Its autographic style offers precious materials to study Fitzgerald. Meanwhile, Tender is the Night depicts the pursuit of American dream under the background of jazz age, and it is the reflection of American false values of wealth and pleasures which lead to bad consequences.
By analyzing Dick Diver’s bewilderment in life, marriage and idealism, the paper mainly narrates the process that Dick Diver’s transition from young ambitious psychologist to the final tragic and the inevitability of Dick Diver’s degeneration, revealing that under the influence of money worship, money destroys humanity, reality suppresses individual’s dream, and American distorted value in the jazz age makes people go astray and leads them to ultimate destruction. Different from previous studies, the present paper concerns itself with a detailed study of Dick Diver’s inevitable degeneration from relatively new perspective. It aims to emphasize the importance of two main conflicts, highlighting the gaps between individual values and the society, and the concept of material wealth of different social classes.
Key words: Dick Diver; inevitability of degeneration; bewilderment; disillusionment
Contents
Abstract in Chinese
Abstract in English
Introduction1
Chapter One The Seed of Degenerations3
A. Merits of Dick3
B. The Weakness of Dick4
C. The Fate of the Change5
Chapter Two The Inevitability of the Degeneration of Dick6
A. The Indulgent Life of Dick6
B. The Bafflement of Marriage7
C. The Bafflement of the Idealism7
Chapter Three Disillusionment of American Dream9
A. The Conflict between Upper Class’s Material Life and Dick’s Values9
