从空间的角度解读《夜色温柔》的身份建构况嘉

单位代码 10635
学号 112020310000728
硕士学位论文
从空间的角度解读《夜色温柔》的
身份建构
论文作者：况嘉
指导教师：刘立辉
学科专业：英语语言文学
研究方向：英美文学
提交论文日期： 2023 年 3 月 24 日
论文答辩日期： 2023 年 5 月 13 日
学位授予单位：西南大学
中国  重庆
2023 年 3 月
An Analysis of Identity Construction in Tender Is the
Night from the Perspective of Spatial Narratives
Kuang Jia
Supervisor
Prof. Liu Lihui
A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree of
M. A. In English
COLLEGE OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

SOUTHWEST UNIVERSITY
March, 2023
Contents
Abstract ................................................................................................................................. I
摘要 ................................................................................................................................ III
Introduction ...........................................................................................................................1
Chapter One Identity Crisis in Social Space ....................................................................12

A. Nicole: The Schizophrenic Patient Caused by the Immoral Incest ........................ 12
B. Rosemary: A Girl’s Struggle to Get Rid of Her Mother’s Control .........................18
C. Dick’s Collapse of Faith after His Father’s Death ..................................................20
Chapter Two Pursuit of Identity in Physical Space ......................................................... 23

A. Nicole’s Pursuit of Health in Sanatorium ...............................................................25
B. Rosemary’s Pursuit of Independence in Riviera .................................................... 29
C. Dick’s Pursuit of Fame in the Shift of Physical Space ...........................................31
Chapter Three Failed Reconstruction of Identity in Mental Space ................................. 35

A. Nicole’s Dependence on Men ................................................................................ 35
B. Rosemary’s Fall in Hollywood ...............................................................................37
C. Dick’s Decay in Lust .............................................................................................. 40
Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 43
Works Cited ........................................................................................................................ 45
i
An Analysis of Identity Construction in Tender Is
the Night from the Perspective of Spatial Narratives
Abstract
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, as one of the most influential American writers in the
twentieth century, is the spokesperson of the Jazz Age, the representative novelist of
Lost Generation. Fitzgerald published his fourth novel Tender Is the Night in 1934. The
novel mainly tells about the fall of the mentally ill characters in the American society in
the 1920s. As one of Fitzgerald’s most representative works, the novel has been studied
from many different perspectives. The thesis has analyzed the identity of three
characters in terms of social space, physical space, and mental space based on
Lefebvre’s spatial criticism theory.
This thesis consists of three parts.
The first part is a general introduction, which mainly introduces F. Scott Fitzgerald,
his creative experience, and his work Tender Is the Night. In addition, this part provides
a review of the domestic and foreign literature related to Tender Is the Night in detail,
thus clarifying the research direction and significance of this thesis. Finally, the
theoretical basis of this thesis introduces Henri Lefebvre’s spatial criticism theory and
explains the rationality and effectiveness of using the theory of spatial criticism to
interpret the identity problem.
The main part analyzes the pursuit and failure of identity construction in Tender Is
the Night in three chapters.
The first chapter reveals the identity crisis of the characters and its causes in social
space. Space is productive and contains abstract social attributes and different social
relations. In Tender Is the Night, the change of characters’ social relations with their
family is the main cause of their identity crises. The second chapter focuses on the
identity pursuit of the characters in physical space. The mobility of identity is reflected
in the ever-changing physical space. Space is no longer regarded as an independent
entity, but the multiple social and cultural attributes behind it are analyzed. In Tender Is
the Night, the physical spaces that characters live in are oppressive to some extent,
I
西南大学硕士学位论文
which urges them to get rid of the shackles of the current space through the shift of
geographical space, thus completing the identity pursuit. The third chapter discusses
how the characters fail to realize the identity reconstruction in mental space. Mental
space is an individual’s representation of the objective world, which reflects the
subjective experience and active response of the subject. Physical space and social
space have further shaped the individual’s mental space. The process of characters’
inner changes reflects their cognitive changes of identity and their attempts and efforts
to realize identity construction in mental space.
The last part is the conclusion of the thesis. By analyzing the multi-dimensional
space in Tender Is the Night, that is, physical space, social space, and mental space, this
thesis explores the identity problems faced by the characters in the novel. Through the
portrayal of Dick, Nicole and Rosemary, Fitzgerald shows identity dilemma of the
post-war American generations.
Key Words: Identity; Lefebvre; Spatial Narrative; Tender Is the Night
II
从空间的角度解读《夜色温柔》中的身份建构
摘要
弗朗西斯·斯科特·菲茨杰拉德是二十世纪最具影响力的美国作家之一。他被
称为爵士时代的代言人，“迷惘一代”的代表作家。菲茨杰拉德于 1934 年出版了
他的第四部小说《夜色温柔》。小说主要讲述了十九世纪二十年代的美国人贫瘠抑
郁的心理状态。
《夜色温柔》作为菲茨杰拉德最具代表性的作品之一,自出版以来许
多学者对该小说从不同角度进行了分析研究。本论文试图基于列斐伏尔的空间批
评理论，分析迪克、罗斯玛丽和妮可在社会空间、物理空间和心理空间中失败的
身份建构。
论文主要由三部分组成。
首先是引言部分，主要介绍作家菲茨杰拉德的创作经历及其作品《夜色温柔》。
此外，该部分对与《夜色温柔》相关的国内外文献进行了较为详细的梳理，从而
明确了本文的研究方向和意义。最后是本文的理论基础部分，介绍了亨利·列斐
伏尔的空间批评理论，并进一步说明运用空间批评理论解读身份问题的合理性和
有效性。
正文部分共分为三章，主要分析《夜色温柔》中三位角色失败的身份建构
第一章揭示了小说人物在社会空间内面临的身份危机及其产生原因。社会空间
具有生产性并且蕴藏着抽象的社会属性和不同的社会关系。在《夜色温柔》中，
三位角色与家庭成员关系的变化是他们身份危机的主要成因。第二章聚焦物理空
间的转换与小说中三位角色身份转变之间的关系。身份的流动性体现在不断变化
的物理空间中。物理空间不再被视为独立的实体，而是以此为依托分析其背后的
多重社会文化属性。在小说《夜色温柔》中，三位角色所生活的空间均在一定程
度上具有压迫性，与其身份认知不匹配，促使他们通过地理空间的转移来摆脱当
前空间的束缚，从而完成身份的确认。第三章探讨了三位角色在心理空间内如何
未能成功实现身份建构。心理空间是个体对客观世界的表征，反映了人物主体的
主观体验和能动反应。物理空间和社会空间又进一步塑造了个体的心理空间。角
色的心理变化过程反映出他们对身份的认知变化以及在心理空间内实现身份建构
而做出的尝试与努力。
最后是论文的结论部分。通过分析小说中的多维空间，即物理空间、社会空间
III
和心理空间，审视了菲茨杰拉德对爵士时代人们生存状态和心理状态的思考。通
过对迪克、妮可以及罗丝玛丽的塑造，菲茨杰拉德展现了在多维空间中二十年代
美国人的身份建构困境。
关键词：身份建构；列斐伏尔；空间叙事；《夜色温柔》
IV
Introduction
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (1896-1940) is regarded as a one of the most

important American writers in the 20th century and the spokesperson of the Jazz Age.
As a writer, he is quite prolific. In his lifetime, he produced five novels and many short
stories. As a major writer in modern literature, Fitzgerald’s main literary achievements
lie in his composition of his five novels which are This Side of Paradise (1920), The
Beautiful and Damned(1922), The Great Gatsby(1925), Tender Is the Night(1934), and
The Last Tycoon(1941).
Fitzgerald quickly gained his reputation as his first book This Side of Paradise
became the best seller not long after its publication. Fitzgerald is a writer who is
inclined to draw inspiration from his daily life, which also explains why all of his works
are to some extent autobiographical. All the heroes in the novels are the embodiment of
some fractions of his personality. Just like the author Fitzgerald himself, the characters
in the novel are always on the way to pursue their identities and positions in the world.
This Side of Paradise is about Fitzgerald’s experience in Princeton University. The
hero in the novel Amory Blaine starts out a vibrant and ambitious college student who
would want to make some achievements in literature and thus becomes a famous writer.
But his later experience in the First World War challenges his belief and dream in life.
After his return from the battlefield, he begins to lose his direction and dream in life.
Amory grows gradually in a state of bitterness which shows that he would easily feel
disappointed in and unsatisfied with the regulations of the government. He holds a
fantasy that he could be a leader in the revolution that the government could be
overthrown and he could be a great person that leaves his name in the history of
America.
The Beautiful and Damned is comparably less significant in Fitzgerald’s novels.
The publication of the novel was only two years after his first book This Side of
Paradise came out. Thus the two novels are thematically quietly similar to each other.
In Fitzgerald’s letter to Charles Scribner II, “He is one of those many with the taste and
weaknesses of an artist but with no actual creative inspiration. How the shoal of
1
dissipation is told in the story. This sounds sordid but it’s really a most sensational book
+ I hope won’t disappoint the critics who liked my first one” (The Crack-Up 41). In this
book, Fitzgerald’s writing skills improved compared with his debut work. The two
books hold great similarities in the themes. The Beautiful and Damned is also a work
talking of American teenagers’ unhealthy greed for money and power and how they
resulted in self-destruction. Anthony Patch was similarly a 25-year-old enthusiastic and
energetic young man as Amory. After Anthony Patch marries Gloria, their extravagant
lifestyle helps to squander away all their family money and finally degenerates morally.
The harsh and cold depiction of the night life in New York has revealed the bloody and
sordid image of American upper class.
Then in 1925, Fitzgerald published his most important novel The Great Gatsby,
which is the one that helps to establish his status as a major writer in the history of
American literature. The novel mainly talks about the millionaire Jay Gatsby’s efforts to
win over Daisy who is his first love. The novel later reveals the true identity of the
millionaire Gatsby as just a farmer’s son in an American southern village. Gatsby seizes
every opportunity he meets whether it is legal or not to become one elite of the upper
class in America so that he could make Daisy fall in love with him again who has
haunted in his mind for many years since their first sight. When the novel The Great
Gatsby was published, it received excellent reviews from Seldes “Fitzgerald has more
than matured; he has mastered his talents and gone soaring in a beautiful flight, leaving
behind him everything dubious and tricky in his earlier work, and leaving even farther
behind all the men of his generation and most of his elders” (239). However the sales
were much disappointing with no more than thirty thousand copies being sold. It was
not until the first publication of The Last Tycoon with the inclusion of The Great Gatsby
in 1940s after Fitzgerald’s death, the novel eventually aroused the reader’s interests.
Now The Great Gatsby has clearly been one of the literature classics in America.
The Last Tycoon is Fitzgerald’s fifth and most ambitious novel. The novel stayed
unfinished as Fitzgerald passed away in 1940. In fact, Fitzgerald started composing the
novel as early as 1927 but it was not until 1939 that he began to write the novel The
Last Tycoon. When Fitzgerald was penning the novel, he once wrote to Collier’s editor
stating that: “I hope it will be something new, arouse new emotion perhaps even a new
2
Introduction
way of looking at certain phenomena. I have set it safely in a period of five years ago to
obtain detachment, but now that Europe is tumbling about our ears this also seems to be
for the best. It is an escape into a lavish, romantic past that perhaps will not come again
into our time” (Fitzgerald 412). It is obvious written in the letter that Fitzgerald himself
was quite proud of his next novel. The process of the writing the novel was not as
successful as the previous ones, Fitzgerald was constantly asked to write other short
stories for the journals in order to obtain financial necessities to support his luxurious
lifestyle. Because of the interruptions during the composition of The Last Tycoon, the
novel remained unfinished when Fitzgerald died of a heart attack. After Fitzgerald’s
death, it was Edmund Wilson who was arranged to edit the final edition of the novel so
that the reader could finally appreciate Fitzgerald’s last masterpiece. The reviews on the
novel are quite favorable. Stephen Vincent Benét wrote: “Had Fitzgerald been permitted
to finish the book, I think there is no doubt that it would have added a major character
and major novel to American fiction. As it is, ‘The Last Tycoon’ is a great deal more
than a fragment. It shows the full powers of its author, at their height and at their best….
You can take off your hats now, gentlemen, and I think perhaps you had better. This is
not a legend, this is a reputation—and, seen in perspective, it may well be one of the
most secure reputations of our time” (Fitzgerald 375-376). The Last Tycoon is no doubt
an excellent Hollywood novel even it is not finished. Instead of revealing and criticizing
the darkness and decadence which is the atmosphere permeated in Hollywood,
Fitzgerald penned more on the character Monroe Stahr’s struggles in committing to
raising the standards of the art in the Hollywood industry.
Then it comes to Fitzgerald’s fourth novel which this thesis mainly focuses on.
Through the introduction to the other works of Fitzgerald, it is obviously observed that
the characters in Fitzgerald’s novels are always searching their identities and positions
in the society. They are always inconsistent with their surroundings. Holding the
ambition and dreams to reach the top, the characters are always beaten down by the
cruel reality in the end. Thus the disillusionment of American dream is a hot topic in
Fitzgerald studies as well. So is the fourth novel Tender Is the Night.
Tender Is the Night is Fitzgerald’s one of the most ambitious novel in writing.
Again to quote his sentences from his letter to his editor Maxwell Perkins who always
3
believes in his talents and creativity: “it is something really new in form, idea,
structure—the model for the age that Joy and Stein are searching for, that Conrad didn’t
find” (Kuehl 104). When the novel was firstly published in 1934, the responses from the
readers were quite out of Fitzgerald’s expectation. The poor sales of the novel proved
that the novel was not favored and liked by the publication and readers at that moment.
But now Tender Is the Night is clearly one of the most popular American classics in
twentieth century. The abrupt changes of the attitude from both the readers and critic
scholars could arouse the readers’ curiosities of our time why this happens. Through
detailed reading of the novel, Tender Is the Night is indeed a little different from the
author’s previous works. Though the novel could still be seen and appreciated as the
character’s disillusionment of American dream. But compared with the previous works
of the author, the frequent change of the character’s physical space is some new writing
skill that Fitzgerald has never tried before that helps to build up the character’s identity
greatly.
The novel tries to depict the process of the psychiatrist Dick Diver’s moral decay in
the marriage with a schizophrenic patient Nicole Warren. Nicole unexpectedly falls in
love with Dick Diver in her first sight and begins to write tons of letters to show her
affection to the doctor in no more than six months. Due to his incapability of rejecting
women’s affections, after negotiation with the doctors in the clinics and with her sister
Baby Warren, Dick decides to marry Nicole Warren, which could be seen as the
beginning of his destined degeneration. During their marriage, Nicole and Dick does
enjoy a wonderful time in the first few years. But the character flaws hidden in Dick
imply that he is not appropriate for marriage. Dick has woman issues, which helps to
explain that he cannot stop flirting with the woman that appears around him. Another
important character Rosemary Hoyt is one of his mistresses. What’s more, being the
husband and a professional doctor for the same person is really an excruciating task for
anyone. The marriage life with Nicole consumes all of Dick’s energy and ambition. In
the end Nicole succeeds in becoming sober from her mental diseases while Dick loses
his life direction and becomes a common clinic doctor in the countryside.
The composition of Tender Is the Night is no easy task for Fitzgerald. Through the
research, it could be as early as in 1925 not long after the publication of The Great
4
Introduction
Gatsby that Fitzgerald decided to pen his next and most ambitious work Tender Is the
Night. But what is unfortunate is that the writing has to come to a pause for
“[Fitzgerald’s] constant need for large sums of money, his increasingly out-of-control
drinking, his deteriorating relationship with Zelda, then Zelda’s illness itself” (Hook
107). But at the same time, it also has provided the author with abundant materials for
the writing. Schizophrenia, the mental disease which the heroine Nicole Warren has,
was added to the novel due to Fitzgerald’s wife Zelda’s collapse and hospitalization. As
is discussed above, Fitzgerald is a writer who likes to draw inspiration from the events
that happened to himself and those around him. Zelda’s illness has clearly been one of
the sources for Nicole’s schizophrenia. As a novel that was written and published after
The Great Gatsby, it could be universally acknowledged that Fitzgerald improved in
writing skills and did apply a far more intricate narration structure in the Tender Is the
Night.
It has been almost a century since Tender Is the Night was first published in 1934.
During such a large span of time, scholars and critics have tried to appreciate and
analyze the novel from various perspectives to help the readers get a better and deeper
understanding of the novel. Over the years, the reviews on the novels have been varied
greatly as well. Generally speaking, Fitzgerald could be seen as a consistent writer
whose works has presented the similar themes. Overall most of his works have put the
focus on the sad young men which is quite typical and popular in 1920s. But the
attitudes of reviews changed. By the time the novel Tender Is the Night came out, the
United States had already been in the Great Depression. A critic Bryer later pointed out,
“the Jazz Age has given way to the Great Depression, and a book about wealthy
expatriates cavorting on the French Riviera encountered a considerable number of
negative reactions” (74). The unpopularity of the novel at that moment is quite
understandable. Different from the Jazz Age of roaring twenties during when the streets
are crowded with flappers and loud jazz music, during the Great Depression in thirties,
the laughter and the fun has disappeared on the streets. Most of Americans in lower
classes were struggling to hardly maintain their basic life needs. Thus the novel’s theme
is not consistent with the background. But Mathew J. Bruccoli did not reach an
agreement with this opinion. In his eyes, the review which blamed the failures of the
5
novel on the political irrelevancy was not reasonable for the best-selling novels in that
year “demonstrates no reader preference for proletarian fiction” (209). Bruccoli’s reply
to the view however was not very convincing. The novel’s inconsistency with the
society and the time does not necessarily mean proletarian fiction should be the best in
selling.
With the overall criticism and negative comments on the novel, there exist some
critics who hold positive views as well. John Chamberlain defended Tender Is the Night
in New York Times Review: “It seemed to us that Mr. Fitzgerald proceeded accurately,
step by step, with just enough documentation to keep the drama from being misty, but
without destroying the suggestiveness that added to the horror, lurking behind the
surface” (“The Critical Receptions” 311-312). In Bruccoli’s point of view that the
reason for the reviewer at that time “were looking for a straightforward, simple, single
cause and effect, while Fitzgerald’s characterization of Dick and his fall was complex”
(210). Dick’s complexity in his character is also the issue that this thesis is to analyze
from the perspective of space.
It is not until the seventies that came the revival of the criticism on Tender Is the
Night. Bruccoli published The Composition of “Tender Is the Night”: A Study of the
Manuscripts in 1963, in which Bruccoli tries to establish the novel as one of the best
works from Fitzgerald and through the detailed study of the Fitzgerald’s manuscripts
and tries to convince the reader that Fitzgerald is a serious writer. Together with the
publication of “Tender Is the Night”: Essays in Criticism (1969) by Marvin J. Lahood,
Tender Is the Night has finally caught academic interests in the following years.
The essays and criticisms on the novel increase rapidly since 1970s. Scholars try to
inspect and analyze the novel all kinds of angles and perspectives. In 1970, Milton Stern
finished The Golden Moment: The Novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Another very important
book of that time The Illusions of a Nation: Myth and History in the Novels of F. Scott
Fitzgerald was written by John F. Callahan published in 1972. From Bryer’s view, both
books were trying to view “Fitzgerald’s work through the lens of the American
experience” (221). The studies in seventies mainly put the focuses on the characters
appeared in the novels, male or female. Dick’s behaviors and characteristics were
analyzed from the perspective of Freudian theory by which the Dick’s father and theme
6
Introduction
of incest was inspected. Mary Verity McNicholas decides to put her focus on the women
appeared in the novel and how they come to affect Dick’s identity and deterioration in
her “Fitzgerald’s Women in Tender Is the Night”.
From the 1980s to 1990s, the academic studies on Fitzgerald and his works
continue to flourish. Now the focus of the research on the novel begins to diversify.
There appear studies that intend to analyze the pop culture of 1920s which is presented
in the narration of the novel. In 1996, Mathew J. Bruccoli co-writes the Reader’s
Companion to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Tender Is the Night” with Judith S. Baughman,
which now has already been a vital reference book on the Tender studies.
The academic passions on Tender Is the Night continue in 21st century. Many
scholars try to analyze Tender from new perspective and apply new theories. The
quantities and qualities of Tender studies in 21st century are both considerable. To
summarize, the studies on Tender in this period mainly are racism, war, psychoanalysis
and so on. Early domestic researches on Tender mainly focus on its translation and only
a few scholars try to analyze its themes and characters from the traditional critical
perspective of history and culture. And not until the 21st century did domestic scholars
begin to examine the novel from more diverse and comprehensive points of view. And
those focusing on the two protagonists are generally connected with the themes of
consumerism, American dream, Gender relations and mental illness of Tender.
The thesis tries to analyze the characters’ identities in Tender Is the Night from
Lefebvre’s space theory.
It seems that time and space should be equally important in the sociological
research. However, the issue of space was not given enough attentions in the literature
studies. The narration and arrangement of language in literature has always been
thought highly relevant to the matter of time especially compared with modern arts.
Many critics, for instance Lessing believes “form in plastic arts is spatial because the
visible aspects of objects can be juxtaposed in an instant of time. Literature, on the other
hand, takes language, composed a succession of words proceeding through time; and it
follows that literary form, to harmonize with the essential quality of its medium, must
be based on some form of narrative sequence” (qtd. in Frank 3). Lessing’s view on the
relationship between space and time in literature studies seems convincing in the
7
traditional literary works. Almost all the classic literary theories have agreed with
Lessing’s opinion. However, the emergence of modern novel in the twentieth century
questions the idea that the novel’s narration has to be based on the sequence of time.
The modernist writers in the early century applied the new technique which is stream of
consciousness in structuring their novels. In modern novels, frequent flashback of the
character’s conscience and nonlinear narration are constantly applied by the writers to
present to a spatial effect.
Under the influence of Lessing, Joseph Frank is the first one trying to emphasize
the significance of space in modern novels in his essay “Spatial Form in Modern
Literature” (1945). He put forward his opinion by saying that “all these writers intended
the reader to read spatially” (5). Modernism is a great break from the tradition of
romanticism and realism. As what has been mentioned above, the modern novels are not
merely to supply the intricate and exciting plots for the readers. In fact, modernism pays
much of its attention to the depiction of the character’s mental activities. The frequent
use of stream of consciousness is indeed to some extent confusing for the readers in
their first reading of the text. But at the same time, the novels would vividly present the
disorder and chaotic state hidden in the character’s mental state. The breaking of the
time sequence makes it possible that activities happened in different place and different
days could be narrated at the same time. In order to clear the confusion, the reader has
to read the novel back and forth in a way the novel itself has become a space where the
reader have to inspect every corner to apprehend the gist.
Henry Lefebvre (1901-1991) establishes his fame as a well-known French
philosopher and is regarded as one of the founders of spatial theory. As a modern spatial
theorist, Lefebvre criticizes the opinion regarding space merely as a container. He
believes space has the power of production. The theory tries to emphasize the social
attributes of space. Lefebvre thinks the formation of space is highly relevant to the
human behaviors and social productions. In 1974, Lefebvre published his masterpiece
The Production of Space. In the book, he put forward the concept of spatial trios which
consists physical space, social space and mental space.
Physical space, also known as spatial practice, is the place where human-beings
live in and carry out their daily activities. Physical space “is never empty: it always
8
Introduction
embodies ameaning” (Lefebvre 154). So, physical space in literature does not simply
refers to the spot where the characters take actions. Physical space refers to people’s
living space. In the shift of physical space the character’s perception of who he is could
be affected and change his identity unconsciously, which motivates the development of
the plot
Social space, as known as “representational space” is the place where people have
social communications with others. Lefebvre thinks social space “contains — and
assigns (more or less) appropriate places to…the relations of production, i.e. the
division of labour and its organization in the form of hierarchical social functions”
(Lefebvre 32).Social space consists of people’s social relations. The confrontation and
contradictions in social space forces one’s living space move constantly due to their
cognition.
Mental space is the abstract space which reflects human’s inner mental activities.
Lefebvre thinks mental space is “tied to the relations of production and to the ‘order’
which those relations impose, and hence to knowledge, to signs, to codes, and to
‘frontal’ relations” (33). Mental space is a reflection of the external geographical
environment and social practice experience in the inner world of characters.
Identity is a very important issue in the sociological research, which is also a hot
topic in the literature studies. When it comes to the study of literary characters, identity
is always a vital factor to consider and analyze. Identity was first brought up by the
German psychoanalyst Erik H. Erikson. Erikson thinks identity as one’s continuity and
integrity in recognizing his characters both in time and space. According to Erikson,
self-identity “emerges from experiences in which temporarily confused selves are
successfully reintegrated in an ensemble of roles which also secure social recognition.”
(211). Identity could be referred to as how one person is recognized both by himself and
by the other, which is not only about the one himself, but also his perception of the
things and people around them. In fact, the realization of one’s identity is always accord
with the definition of “the other”. One cannot fully understand who he is unless he can
clearly and easily differentiate himself from other people around them. The literary term
“the other” has a long history of development since its invention. Over centuries, there
has been a heated discussion with no exactly correct definitions on the term. Professor
9
Zhang Jian holds the idea that the other is a definition opposite to self which means
everything in the outside world except you, whether it is formless, invisible or
insensible. In this way, Professor Zhang Jian puts the stress on the contrast between the
self and the other. While in other critics’ eyes, the other tends to have the idea that the
term could be defined. Thus, because of its indefinability, we could find the essential
meaning of the term is difference.
In fact, the other was not given enough notice until some reinterpretation on the
other from some important critics such as Lachan, who thinks the other as important as
self. Julian Wolfreys thinks that otherness could seen as the state of the other who refer
to the social groups or people who does not follow social norms and regulations. In a
word, the other could be taken as someone that does not fit in with his community and
social environment.
Thus the space which includes the community and the social environment is highly
relevant to the construction of one’s identity. Firstly, as is mentioned above, the
construction of one’s identity is a long process, which the baby has to realize with the
help of the physical and social spaces. Only when he is capable of differentiating the
other, can he begin to build his own identity. What’s more, space has its subjectivities as
well. The space will change simultaneously with the development of time and economy.
It will stay still and unchanged. The kindergarten which used to be isolated in the back
of your home when you are a preschool kid may disappear into a shopping center. The
constant change of physical space and social space could be of great significance into
one’s perception of his identity,
The pursuit of identity has been an issue in the United States since the beginning of
the twentieth century. In the first two decades, the American youth has gone through
tremendous trauma suffering from the cruelties of the First World War, which was first
claimed by the government as a war defending the justice and human rights, but later
revealed as an evil crime that the capitalism has committed. For those American
youngsters who embarked on the battlefield with the pride of defending their
motherland and justice, the disillusionment and disappointment for the world later
permeated their mind. The young soldiers who have returned from the war gradually got
lost in their life direction, for their dreams and aspirations was revealed as the lie that
10
Introduction
government has deliberately fabricated for them. Then rather holding a positive attitude
toward life, they decided to squander their time in having fun at the drinking parties.
That period of time was later defined as the Jazz Age. The Jazz Age is an age when the
people got lost or drunk in the alcoholism and Jazz music. As the most famous
spokesperson of the Jazz Age, the author of the novel Fitzgerald deliberately depicted
all his heroes with a sense of loss. From Gatsby to Dick, most of his heroes in the novel
have gone through a quest to build up their identity, starting out to pursue their dream,
and not surprisingly all failed. Not only was the tragic failure of their life resulted from
deflects in their inner characteristics, but also the circumstances that has influenced the
characters living in that age.
The thesis tries to analyze the issue of the characters’ identities from the
perspective of space applying the theory of Lefebvre. The thesis consists of three parts.
The first part is the introduction to the author, the novel Tender Is the Night, the
literature review of the novel, and the brief introduction to the theory itself. Then what
comes next is the analysis of the novel from social space, physical space and mental
space in the following three chapters. The third part is the conclusion of the thesis.
11
Chapter One
Identity Crisis in Social Space
In The Production of Space, Henri Lefebvre puts forward a significant concept:

social space. It “contains a great diversity of objects, both natural and social…such
‘objects’ are thus not only things but also relations” (Lefebvre 77). Human beings are
the sum of social relations. A man could not realize who he is without the judgments
and reflections from his surroundings. It has been said, everyone is born pure and
innocent. It is the social space around humans that helps to create different personality.
In The Production of Space, Henri Lefebvre states that “family is retained and
maintained as the ‘basis’ of personal and direct relationships which are bound to nature,
to the earth, to procreation, and thus to reproduction” (Lefebvre 33). Therefore, family
plays a critical role in children’s growth. The most important relation for the kids is
what they have with their parents. Family being one of the greatest significant social
spaces will be mainly discussed in this chapter.
According to Lacan’s mirror theory, it takes a long progress for anyone to realize
who he is. To babies around six to eighteen months, they could not even recognize
themselves through the mirror. What is reflected in the mirror to them is nothing but an
image which has nothing to do with them. Through the help and supports from the
outside world, they gradually succeeded in recognizing what is “self” and what is
“other”. The characters in the novel are the same as the babies who set out to pursue
their identities. In Fitzgerald’s novels, hardly female characters that are confident and
independent could be found. More or less, there exist some problems in their characters.
The characters Dick, Nicole and Rosemary in Tender Is the Night suffer greatly when
building their identity in social space. At the same time, the hero in the novel Dick is
also suffering his identity crisis after his father’s death.
A. Nicole: The Schizophrenic Patient Caused by the Immoral Incest

Nicole, the daughter of Mr. Warren, is seemingly a woman of grace and tenderness.
When Rosemary first met Nicole, in her mind Nicole was perfect from head to toe.
12
Chapter Two Pursuit of Identity in Physical Space
When they are shopping in the mall, Nicole showed her extravagant lifestyle and
insensitive attitude toward money, which indicated her huge family wealth. The readers
are easily misled when Nicole grows up in her childhood she must have been under
meticulous care and surrounded love from her family members.
But when Mr. Warren narrates his immoral incest with Nicole in the book two,
which accounts for Nicole’s schizophrenia, it is revealed to the reader that Nicole’s
identity crisis started from her family. Nicole’s father did not show his appearance
frequently, but he is the most vicious and hypocritical character in the novel. Just as
Tom Buchanan, He is a classic representative of the American upper class at that time.
The first conversation Mr. Warren had with Doctor Dohmler showed no honesty and
sincerity in the character. The action of asking for medical help does not seem to be out
of Mr. Warren’s care for Nicole his daughter’s sickness, but rather make amends for
what he has done to maintain his social class. “because Nicole was always the same to
me, he added rather hastily, as if some one had accused him of being to blame, — the
same loving little girl. The first thing was valet” (Tender 182).
Mr. Warren tries to conceal and refuses to admit his immoral incest with his little
daughter so that he tries to blame Nicole’s illness on others. He keeps emphasizing that
Nicole to him will always be the little lovely girl while he pretends there is nothing
more than the lovely father-daughter relation between them. Mr. Warren’s crime of
incest has not completely been introduced yet, but the reader can already feel there is
something weird about Mr. Warren’s discourses. Doctor Dohmler does not believe him
either. While listening to Mr. Warren’s narration about the cause on Nicole’s illness,
Doctor Dohmler like Sherlock Holmes suspects whether it is true there is only a valet to
be introduced from Mr. Warren’s words. Having conceived that Mr. Warren is telling
anything but truth, Doctor Domnler’s thought wanders away to Chicago while
wondering why Mr. Warren was telling lies to him. What can be concluded here is that
though the incest has not been revealed yet, Mr. Warren’s hypocrisy has been confirmed
at least from Doctor Domnnler.
After the short conversation with Doctor Domnler, Mr. Warren leaves for Laussane
right away and makes excuses to postpone his promised second visit instead of staying
at the clinic and keeping Nicole’s company. In the end, Mr. Warren has to show his
13
appearance at the clinic to confess the truth forced by the insistent request from Doctor
Dohmnler. Now the hypocrisy and evil deeds that Mr. Warren has done to his daughter
Nicole Warren are revealed completely. In his second visit, Mr. Warren has a breakdown.
“It just happened… I don’t know—I don’t know” (Tender 180). After his confession of
his incestuous behaviour with Nicole, Mr. Warren is still trying to make excuses for his
crime. Mr. Warren has complete responsibility for his action as an adult, Compared with
his little daughter. When he is having the unmoral behaviour with his daughter, he must
be fully sober.
People used to say what a wonderful father and daughter we were—they used to
wipe their eyes. We were just like lovers—and then all at once we were lovers—and ten
minutes after it happened I could have shot myself—except I guess I’m such a
goddamned degenerate I didn’t have the nerve to do it. (Tender 186)
Through Warren’s discourse, the reader could possibly be misled that his mind
suffers greatly. But as is analyzed above, his love for Nicole seems not as strong as what
he has declared “a wonderful father and daughter”. His quick departure from the clinic
and his excuses he makes for being late to pay the second visit help to prove his lack of
responsibility both for his daughter and his behaviours. Mr. Warren could possibly feel a
little sorry for his little daughter, but never so guilty that he would shoot himself as he
claims. If he is really that guilty that he wants to shoot himself, he would try everything
to make amends to recover Nicole form illness. Any other qualified fathers in the world
would never leave his child alone at hospital while he does something comparably less
significant.
The relationship between father and daughter, mother and son is always a tough
challenge to deal with. Especially when the kid is growing up, the curiosity for the other
gender will naturally aroused. Similar to boy’s Oedipus effect, the girl would easily
have Electra complex for her father. From the famous psychologist Freud’s theory, in
the third stage of the girl’s psychological sexual development, she will become
infatuated with her father and begins to treat the father as an adult of other sex. The girl
would wish that she could replace her mother so that she could be with her father. It is
pretty normal for a little child to have such a seemingly bizarre and shocking opinion.
14
But the parents should have the basic moral ethic and awareness what should be
allowed and what ought to be forbidden.
It is through Mr. Warren’s mouth that Nicole is the one who offers the opportunity
for the unmoral incest. When the mother died, Nicole comes to sleep in Mr. Warren’s
bed while singing “Now let’s not pay any attention to anybody else this afternoon—let’s
just have each other—for this morning you’re mine” (Tender 186). There could be some
sexual implication and explanation to the lyrics. When Nicole is singing to Mr. Warren,
the little girl maybe just simply express her love to the father who at the moment is the
only adult she could rely on, or it is because of the Electra effect that Nicole is really
trying to seduce Mr. Warren. The intention of little Nicole’s action remains unknown to
the reader, since Fitzgerald does not directly depict Nicole’s mental activities. But what
can be concluded is that Mr. Warren is incompetent of controlling himself.
Due to the irresponsibility and hypocrisy of the father and absence of the mother in
Nicole’s childhood, Nicole grows up without enough support and love from her family
members. Being a little child when her mother died, the only one Nicole has company is
her father Mr. Warren. But instead of teaching Nicole how to love herself and build her
identity in the family, Mr. Warren chooses to have incestuous behaviour with Nicole,
which is the real cause for her schizophrenia and results in forming a distorted view on
love. Since the family is the root for Nicole to recover, now the only thing that can do to
help her recover is to have her separated from her father. The most sarcastic fact about
Mr. Warren is that when he is forced to keep away from Nicole, he does show a little
collapse. But all he cares is that whether the story of incest with his little daughter
would ever leak back to the people who he is around in America. It seems to the reader
that Mr. Warren cares more about his reputation and social dignity than his daughter.
The spiritual breakdown and his confession of love to Nicole seem to be only a defence
for his action. If the previous depiction and discourse of Devereux Warren leaves some
vagueness for his sense of morality, now his hypocrisy as an American middle class has
completely exposed through the author’s pens.
In the early twentieth century, Americans’ faith and belief has been largely
challenged through the cruelty of the war and sordidness of capitalism. Every American
was on their way to reconstruct their identity. So is Mr. Warren. As “a fine American
15
type in every way, tall, broad, well-made—‘un home très chic’” (Tender 181), he is a
strikingly handsome man looking less than forty. Mr. Warren tried so hard to maintain
his perfect image in front of others. Man’s reputation at that time seems to be based on
his property and wealth. Just like Gatsby, he tries many methods as possible as he can to
get rich so that later when he becomes millionaire people love to attend his party in
which there are full of extravagances and intricacies. Jazz age is a time of darkness
during which people seem to have lost their faith and dream to the limitless alcoholism
and carnal pleasures. But under the surface of laughter and fun of the parties, deep
inside Americans’ hearts lacks of passion of life. The same is with Mr. Warren, beneath
the handsome look and huge wealth, he is only a corrupted soul who has been tainted
and tamed by the hypocrisy of capitalism and greed of money. In a way, he is
disqualified as a father for dedicating more of his time into his social life and business
neglecting the more important thing in life which the bond and love between family.
Nicole’s sister, Baby Warren is another family member from whom she hardly
receives any love and support. Perhaps if Baby would treat Nicole sincerely, her illness
would not have been so severe. In Baby Warren’s eyes, the love relationship between
Nicole and Dick was nothing more than a deal in business. Baby in the novel most of
the time appears together with Nicole. It seems that their relationship is quite intimate.
But from Baby’s side, Nicole has never been equal with her. Like father, like son. The
same case is with Baby Warren, she is extremely selfish and materialistic as Mr. Warren.
When Baby first encounters Dick, she said directly without any disguise to Dick
that she and Mr. Warren’s plan to get Nicole to marry a doctor in order to control
Nicole’s sickness while completely neglecting Nicole’s own will.
Now of course we have lots of connections there—Father controls certain chairs and
fellowships and so forth at the University, and I thought if we took Nicole home and
threw her with that crowd—you see she’s quite musical and speaks all these
languages—what could be better in her condition than she fell in love with some good
doctor— (Tender 220)
Some good doctor is what Baby wants for her little sister, which explains her
attitudes toward Dick. Nicole’s marriage with Dick was just a way to keep Nicole’s
illness under control. To Baby Warren, Dick perhaps is not even good enough to be
16
thought as some good doctor. Nicole showed her disaffection and dissatisfaction toward
Dick marrying Nicole. When Baby Warren talks with Dick, her sense of superiority has
never ceased. She has no plan to maintain her perfect image as what Mr. Warren did in
front of Doctor Dohmler. Baby “had looked Dick over with worldly eyes, she had
measured him with the warped rule of Anglophile and found him wanting…But for her
he was too intellectual”(Tender 228 ). The intention of showing the wealth and power of
her family seems to suggest that in Baby’s eyes, Dick is not a match. The arrogance of
her identity as an aristocrat is revealed. Nicole pigeonholes Dick with a
shabby—snobby crowd. Without really inspecting Dick’s character and morality, she
bases her judgement completely on the social class and money. Coming from a ducal
family without a title, Baby’s sense of position was crystallized. When she realizes Dick
about his clergyman family, her arrogance is no longer hidden. Just as her father would
have it on any other clergyman, so is Baby who is highly influenced by her father.
It seems that love is never under Baby’s consideration. As one of the tall restless
virgin, her engagement with an English man does not succeed, which is perhaps the
reason why she does not believe or want to believe that Nicole’s marriage with Dick is
out of love. Even after Nicole’s marriage, Baby Warren still holds on to her opinion.
When Franz asks Dick to run a clinic together, Baby Warren is showing her intention of
buying Dick a clinic which Dick senses Baby’s message is they own him. Because deep
in her heart, she regards Nicole as a burden that no men in the world would love her
little sister sincerely, which helps to explain why Baby suddenly becomes so supportive
of Dick career. The Warrens has left the heavy burdens of Nicole on another some good
doctor. And from a business man’s eyes, it is common to exchange benefits. When Baby
is implying the offer, Baby became suddenly her grandfather, cool and experimental.
Baby too was a sacrificial lamb whose identity has been tamed and assimilated by
money and apathy of family.
It could have been said that both Nicole and Baby’s attitudes have been greatly
influenced by Mr. Warren. Since the lack of care and love from the parents, the only
thing they can get from the family is the financial support. When Nicole is shopping
together with Rosemary, Nicole’s extravagant lifestyle was presented directly.
17
For her sake Nicole was the product of much ingenuity and toil. Trains began their
run at Chicago and traversed the round belly of the continent to California; chicle
factories fumed and link belts grew link by link in factories; men mixed toothpaste in vats
and drew tomatoes quickly in August or worked rudely at Five-and- Tens on Christmas
Eve; (Tender 78)
As an American girl who grows up from a wealthy family, Nicole’s attitudes

towards money and life are just the same as the celebrities of nowadays on the internet.
She takes everything for granted. For her the extravagance of her lifestyle is something
she should have since born. The labours and sweats of the factory workers are no
concerns for her. On the contrary, she possibly wishes they should work harder so that
she could continue to enjoy her ecstasy on conspicuous consumption and luxury. Both
Nicole and Baby have been corrupted severely by the generational wealth. By the
erosion of the money, they have lost the capability to love and connect with others.
B. Rosemary: A Girl’s Struggle to Get Rid of Her Mother’s Control

Similar to the film Rosemary has starred in, she is seen as a daddy’s girl. The
contrast of primitive mind and sensual desire reflected in Rosemary has been analyzed.
But the reason why Rosemary has formed such a character could possibly on her mother.
Different from Rosemary’s naivety, her mother is a strong and independent woman,
from whom Rosemary almost shared and consulted everything she thinks interesting
and confusing in life. The moment she is aware of her affection toward Dick, she
immediately shares with her mother. Mrs. Speers is her mother and at the same her best
friend. The uniqueness and contrast that has been represented in Rosemary’s character
was cultivated by her mother’s heavy labour. Rosemary used to see the world through
her mother’s eyes. Having twice unsatisfying marriage, it has gained Mrs. Elsie Speers
some hardness in heart. She chooses to raise Rosemary a spirituality of both hardness
and tenderness. From her eyes, the sudden success of Rosemary being a movie star
seems to suggest that her way of parenting Rosemary is correct and the reward is that
she was “spiritually weaned, it would please rather than pain her if this somewhat
bouncing, breathless and exigent idealism would focus on something except herself”
(Tender 16).
But Rosemary is not completely an adult both from her attitude to love and her
18
dependence. Being a mother, Mrs. Speers seems not as qualified as the novel suggests
that she is sparing no efforts in raising Rosemary. Exposed to the materialist society and
hanging out with Dick groups, Rosemary’s idealism does switch to someone else other
than Mrs. Speers just as she has thought. Rosemary has shared with Mrs. Speers the
ecstasy and confusion of her affection toward Dick. But instead of giving wise
suggestions on love relationship as a more experienced adult, Mrs. Speers’ response is
quite plain. The first time she simply asks a few simple questions about Rosemary’s
feelings living in Riviera, then dropped the question. Even though Mr. Speers’ naïve
little daughter tells her that Dick’s married though. As any qualified mother who
understands and respects the morals, Mrs. Speers would, as the novel says, spare no
efforts persuading Rosemary out of the unmoral affections she holds on Dick. The
second time is when Rosemary crying her love on her mother’s lap tormenting by the
fact that Dick is unavailable because of his marriage. Mr. Speers just replies and
comforts her by saying “If you’re in love it ought to make you happy. You ought to
laughs” (Tender 29). It suggests that Rosemary’s confusion and torment on love has
been solved by her mother’s encouragement to purse Dick.
Mrs. Speers is a dominant mother from who Rosemary’s life is severely influenced.
Not just love that Rosemary wants to consult and share with her mother but also
everything else which seems to suggest that Rosemary fully relies on her mother. Just as
Mrs. Speers’ lack of interests to stop Rosemary interference in Dick’s marriage, she has
no inclination to cultivate Rosemary as a self-dependent and confident woman who is
able to survive all the predicaments and challenges in the rest of her life.
Rosemary is a daddy’s girl that implies she needs guidance from the parents rather
than freedoms to do whatever she desires. Rosemary and Mrs. Speers’ later meeting
with Brady in Monte Carlo help where the sordidness of Hollywood industry was
depicted. When Rosemary follows Mr. Brady into a small door, there are actresses
“turning up ashen faces to her like souls in purgatory watching the passage of a mortal
through” (Tender 31). The ashen faces and corrupted souls of other actors in the stage
room contrasts with Rosemary’s innocence. The actors are already afflicted and
tormented by the cruelty and filthiness of the Hollywood industry. They have lost their
identity in the highly cruel movie factory. Being an actress just like them, there is the
19
similar dark future awaits Rosemary if she is not under the correct guidance. Money and
Greed to climb the social ladder corrupts people’s souls greatly. The only mentor
Rosemary is available is her mother Mrs. Speers who should guide Rosemary on the
right path of life. But on the contrary it is just Mrs. Speers that gets her corrupted.
He desired her and, so far her virginal emotion went, she contemplated a surrender
with equanimity. Yet she knew she would forget him half an hour after she left him—like
an actor kissed in a picture. (Tender 32)
Rosemary is on the way to becoming a lost soul in purgatory like other actresses n
she meets in the stage room. In her encounter with Brady, Brady’s sexual desire is under
no disguise. Fitzgerald just penned the foulness of the Hollywood through the depiction
of Brady’s character. Even being new to the business, Rosemary shows no surprise of
Brady’s sexual intention toward her. Thus Rosemary does hold a deformed and
inappropriate attitude toward sex. For her, she could have a random sexual affair with
Brady who is just someone Mrs. Speers arranges for to familiarize so that she could
launch Rosemary out and away. Rosemary in her career is as a puppet that is tamed to
follow her mother’s instruction without wondering what she really wants.
Mrs. Speers has lost the ability to love and care about her child. After witnessing
her two husbands died miserably besides the death beds, she becomes tough in the
appearance in the way perhaps she thought is the best way to protect her and Rosemary,
though deep in her heart, she is excruciatingly exhausted. But things will go contrary to
Mrs. Speers’ Wishes. Not only will Rosemary fail to achieve something as a movie star,
but also she will lose her subjectivity being an individual.
C. Dick’s Collapse of Faith after His Father’s Death

Dick, as the hero of the novel, encounters his identity crisis in family much
different than that of Nicole and Rosemary. His relationship with his father is not in any
way abnormal or unharmonious. But his father’s sudden and unexpected death breaks
her heart and the belief which he used to believe and hold on loses its significance all of
a sudden. Dick used to admire his father so much. Whenever Dick is doing something
difficult and challenging, he always thought of his father. “Dick loved his father–again
and again he referred judgments to what his father would probably have thought or done”
(Tender 295). Dick in this way gradually has formed his moral standards under the great
20
influence under his father.

In fact, Dick’s father is truly a man who is worthy of the respect. Dick is born as
the third child in the family after the death of his two young sisters as narrated. Having
suffered from the loss of children, the parents would naturally have an inclination to
spoil the next little kid they bore. But Dick’s father does not behave the same way
worrying that Dick’s mother would spoil and cuddle Dick. He becomes Dick’s moral
guide who tries to talk “all he knew about life, matters of behavior that came within his
clergyman’s range” (Tender 295). Though being a clergyman, it is impossible for Dick’s
father to make a huge fortune, which suggests that he could not supply ample financial
supports for Dick just as Mrs. Speers and Mr. Warren. On the contrary, Dick’s father is
devoting all of his efforts in trying to raise Dick as an upright and just man who is
worthy of being loved. Dick does live up to his father’s expectation. He is always trying
to be a good man and brings happiness to those around him.
In his previous life, Dick establishes his identity according to his father’s guidance.
Dick’s father is a righteous man, so Dick is trying to be as noble and right as possible.
Having been raised by two widows, Dick’s father is taught to believe that “nothing is
superior to ‘good instincts,’ honor, courtesy, and courage.”(Tender 296) Compared with
Mrs. Speers and Mr. Warren, Dick’s father could be thought more than qualified. Even
with his small fortune, he still sends check to Dick four times a year when Dick is in
college. Possessing the comments of being the gentleman with “smug finality” in the
gilded age, Dick’s father has really set a good moral standard for Dick to follow.
But the death of Dick’s father is certainly a great shock to him. He begins to doubt
everything that he used to believe so firmly. When Dick puts in a call for his wife
Nicole Warren, Dick remembers “so many things as he waited, and wishing he had
always been as good as he intended to be” (Tender 296). Something interesting is that
Fitzgerald uses subjunctive mood to write about Dick’s wish to be always good, which
implies his wish is not likely to come true. The things that happen next in the novel help
to prove that Dick is destined to fall in the physical space.
With the disappearance of his role model, now Dick is in the great confusion in his
construction of identity. Before his father passed away, Dick has the life tutor to follow.
Now Dick is literally free, free from his family and from his father’s guidance. Physical
21
space is not only a geographical spot where all kinds of things just happened but also
the production of culture and bearer of memory. When Dick is in his hometown, Dick
could not help but being indulged in the feeling of sadness and melancholy over his
father’s death. The harbor and the glorious facade of New York make Dick nostalgic
and plunges himself into the memory of childhood during which he had the happiest
time being with his father.
But getting out of the shore, Dick’s feelings surprisingly vanish quickly. When
Dick is standing at the churchyard where his father has been laid with other ancestors
that pass away, he is no longer in a state of sadness. “It was very friendly leaving him
there with all his relations around them” (Tender 296). Now it seems that there is no one
else in Dick’s family. He will never come back to his hometown. The old and little Dick
is now in the process of disappearing. Now Dick is trying to find himself a new identity
22
Chapter Two
Pursuit of Identity in Physical Space
When writing Tender Is the Night, Fitzgerald once asserted that he was writing
“something really new in form, ideas, structure—the model for the age that Joyce and
Stein are searching for, that Conrad didn’t find” (Bruccoli 108) and in 1925, he felt he
had achieved some success: “The novel progresses slowly but brilliantly” (Tate 204).
From those claims, it is obvious to the readers today that Fitzgerald is always a writer
who pursues excellence and creativity in writing and as an ambitious writer, Fitzgerald
would find it extremely painful to just write for bread. Fitzgerald could be seen as one
of the experimental modernist writers like Virginia Woolf, James Joyce and so on.
Chapter two mainly tries to analyze the character’s identity in physical space.
Physical space is the space which we can actually feel and touch in our daily life. And
the physical space in the space theory is not only about the locale and geographical
physiognomy itself, but also the functions which it provides during the narration.
“ The fields we are concerned with are, first, the physical-nature, the Cosmos;
secondly, the mental, including logical and formal abstractions; and, thirdly, the
social”(Lefebvre 11). To explain Lefebvre’s point of view on physical space in more
details, space is the first level of the space triad and is always in close connections with
one’s geographical location. But physical space could never be simply understood as the
geographical spots that one lives in and carries out his daily activities. Indeed physical
space includes the concrete geographical places but is at the same time more than that.
Physical space is the external display of characters’ emotional world, and it is also the
geographical representation of social power institutions, providing a regional place for
the occurrence and development of stories.
Just as the main argument from Lefebvre, space has the power of production. As
the coming of the spatial turn in the twentieth century, the space now is not only viewed
as the simply passive and still geographical places. Instead, as the river which is always
running from its origin to the end, the space is always in the movement of changing and
evolving. The famous Greek philosopher Heraclitus once came up with his famous
23
saying that one could not step into the same river twice, which not only helps to
exemplify that the person is in the state of change in every minute but also the river
which is the location where the person lives is forever in the movement. The
construction of the identity of oneself is the long and slow process that the person
gradually gains the perception of who he really is in the daily activity which happens in
the exact physical spaces he lives in. People living in different geographical areas would
develop different cultures. China is a country which possesses the third largest
landscape in the whole world only slightly below Russia and Australia. Having such a
huge territory, the climate and geographical features varies greatly from south to north
and west to east. It’s naturally people would have different culture and traditions based
on the difference of the geographical physiognomy. So the discussion of space is a
necessity in the study of identities.
In the novel, the story and plots of the novel varies greatly and frequently with the
development of the narration. Something new that the author has applied in form, idea
and structure during his creation of the novels could possibly lie in the frequent change
of narration and the physical spaces in the novel. Fitzgerald is not a writer who likes to
arrange the plot based on the sequence of time and logical order. As an ambitious writer,
Fitzgerald always strives to be creative in writing. Just as the narration in The Great
Gatsby, Gatsby has already been a millionaire who throws parties frequently in his first
appearance in the novel and decides to win Daisy back from her husband. It is then in
the middle part of the novel that Fitzgerald tells the reader who Gatsby really is and
how Gatsby succeeds in his transformation from rags to riches. The same is with the
novel Tender Is the Night. Fitzgerald did not choose to start the narration of Dick’s story
from his first encounter with his wife and patient Nicole. Instead he chooses to start the
novel from the first meeting of Rosemary and the couple on the pleasant shore of the
French Riviera, which not only arouse the reader’s curiosity what the story is really
about but also helps to build up a more complicated and intricate structure of narration.
According to Henri Lefebvre, “all ‘subjects’ are situated in a space in which they
must either recognize themselves or lose themselves, a space which they may both
enjoy and modify” (Lefebvre 35). Having failed to connect their identities with the
family, the characters Nicole and Rosemary naturally will continue to seek spiritual and
24
material supports in the frequent change of physical places.
A. Nicole’s Pursuit of Health in Sanatorium

After Doctor Dohmler asks Mr. Warren to stay away from Nicole with the
minimum of five years, Nicole is now temporarily freed from her family’s influence
which is cause and root of her schizophrenia. Now in Sanatorium where Nicole receives
medical help, she could be on the right path to cure her mental diseases and pursue her
identity as a healthy adult in the society. But being a patient who has schizoid
tendencies, she cannot maintain her mental consciousness without under constant
medical care, which is also the reason why the Warrens want her to fall in love with
some doctor in the south side of Chicago. Nicole is without doubt incompetent as an
adult who will find it impossible to survive in the society completely on her own.
After the death of Nicole’s mother in her early childhood, Mr. Warren is the only
mature adult that she can rely on. So Nicole does everything she can do to please Mr.
Warren not only to comfort her father and relieve his sorrow for the loss her mother, but
also to amuse the only adult she could rely on at the moment so that she will not be
abandoned. Try to imagine what will happen if Mr. Warren marries a woman who will
show no mercy on the little girl! Nicole will no doubt have a miserable childhood. So
Nicole’s flattery to Mr. Warren is in some extent a not so bad choice to make sure her
survival in the family. Indeed Mr. Warren is the “Goddamned degenerate” as he claimed,
but being a little daddy’s girl it could be possibly Nicole’s intention as well to please her
father so that she will be loved and cared forever. After Mr. Warren’s promised absence
of at least five years in Nicole’s life, Nicole naturally turns to rely on other men in the
society, which is to fall in love with Dick the doctor whom she only met once. Nicole is
so indulged in her love for Dick. She continues to confess her affection by writing
around fifty letters over a period of eight months to Dick since Dick leaves for war not
long after their first encounter. In those letters Nicole’s mental struggles are clearly
presented. She boasts her ability to speak three languages and could be useful
interpreting if Dick could arrange her some works of translation in France. Nicole
certainly does not have a job given that she is the mentally ill. But now being a lonely
patient at the clinic and an individual who need to survive in the society, she needs a job
25
to convince herself that she is useful. The behaviour of incest with her father perhaps is
a way for her to show that she is useful to Mr. Warren. Now she is counting her life on
the doctor. In Nicole’s letters, she thinks her family shamefully neglected her. The
alienation from her family and living in a “semi-insane-asylum” disappears and
frightens Nicole heavily. Now the only thing Nicole could do is to write letters to Dick
because there is no one else she could turn to due to her mental troubles. In Nicole’s
eyes, now Dick seems to be the last straw she could clutch at to save her life.
After Nicole marries Dick, they embark on the lands of different countries and
areas to experience the sweet honeymoon. Fitzgerald applies the technique of stream of
consciousness when writing about the marriage life of Dick and Nicole. What could be
confusing is that it is completely from Nicole’s perspective that the reader gets to know
their marriage life. But at the same time just as Nick in Gatsby, Nicole is completely an
unreliable narrator due to her schizophrenia. Her unsteady and inconsistent mental state
has made her memory questionable. But whether Dick is on the journey with Nicole is
something that does happen or coming out of Nicole’s imagination, it will anyhow bring
nothing but positive influence on Nicole.
Nicole has been in an abnormal relationship with her father Mr. Warren since her
mother’s death. The physical space has the power in constructing and reinforcing
human’s identity. If Nicole continues to stay beside her father Mr. Warren, it is no doubt
her mental disease will get deteriorated. The familiar setting in the house will keep
reminding Nicole what has happened to her, not to mention to meet and be with her
father every day. This is also the reason why Doctor Dohmler firmly insists Nicole
should be far away from Mr. Warren. Getting out of the familiar home where Nicole has
almost spent all her life, it is the time to help her build up a new identity to help her
recover. Having no financial issues with the help of Warren money, it would be
absolutely beneficial to travel to different places to experience the world outside her
home, which is something that Nicole has not done with her father yet. Meeting people
from different culture and tradition would help to recover and excite Nicole’s mentality
and senses.
The love relationship between Nicole and Dick has never been equal as well, just
like her relationship with her family. But instead of Dick being dominant in the
26
relationship, it is Nicole that is in the lead of their relationship. Being a patient who has
mental illness, people around Nicole would naturally feel the responsibilities to
shoulder some burden and make the better decisions for her. In Nicole and Dick’s
marriage, it seems that marrying a schizophrenic, Dick should be the person that takes
control of their marriage. But in fact, Nicole is the dominant one. Though having mental
disease, Nicole holds no passive attitudes towards life. She takes everything she thinks
could be beneficial. Nicole falls in love with Dick not only for his handsome looking
but also the fact he is a doctor that could save her from the endless torture from the
illness. The moment she is in love, Nicole begins her almost frantic pursuit in
confessing her affection to Dick. It is through Nicole’s perseverance that Dick finally
admits to marry Nicole.
With her love for Dick, Nicole could easily devote all her attention and energy to
the sweet and happiness in their life. But Nicole’s trouble is not solved at the moment. If
once Dick left her, she would again be sent to the clinic receiving medical cares. Nicole
is lucky enough to find herself a “Dick” as her husband. During the long years of
marriage life, Dick has always been in Nicole’s company both as a doctor and a caring
husband. With such a good care, Nicole does recover gradually to health. As her mental
illness gains substantial improvement, her love for Dick is receding slightly.
After she is completely cured from the schizophrenia, Nicole also finds out she is
not in love with Dick and she does not admire Dick as she used to. But as an adult who
has been under affliction of mental diseases, Nicole has never been one day fully
independent without any help from others. Given that she is not attracted to Dick
anymore, Nicole turns her love and attention to another man who happens to be Tommy
Barban. Nicole still chooses to rely on other men rather than her own. In the company
with Tommy Barban, Nicole seems so in love with the man who is standing in front of
him as well. She could easily feel passionate and desired to be with Tommy, but at the
same time she could get rid of that feeling as well. Tommy Barban is so different. He
could be anything but a synonym of Dick. If Dick represents civilization, Tommy could
be a representative of savage. Dick used to be so careful of Nicole’s feelings and helps
to build her confidence by keeping complimenting. What Tommy has brought to Nicole
is a feeling that she has not felt before. But it’s more of a pure physiological pleasure
27
rather than true love. When they are closely intimate, Nicole even forgets about Tommy
Barban’s existence. Of course she does not think of Dick as well. Nicole is just simply
indulged in the physical amusements. She feels something is going to be different later
in her life. Her marriage with Dick could not last any longer. She does feel a sense of
horror about her illicit behaviour. But just like a beast who has been trapped in the cage,
she is now free of her mind and willing to do some things that has been repressed in her
heart for so long, whether it is moral or not.
It is quite a surprise that Nicole is exhilarating when she finds out that Tommy is
quite experienced with women. She does certainly hold little love for Tommy Barban.
Nicole is challenged in a way that if she wants to keep her attraction to Tommy, she
should possess inner beauty as well as the breathtaking appearance. Now Nicole is
living on a rope linked between cliffs. She does enjoy the excitement that Tommy
Barban brings to her. At the same time, she has not mentally prepared yet to completely
separate herself from Dick. After the affair, Dick comes back from his vacation. It
comes to a point when Dick comes to realization that he is incapable of anything in this
marriage. He presents no cares toward Nicole’s life and her daily activities. Who Nicole
is seeing and cheating behind him arouses no curiosity and jealousy in his heart. Nicole
realizes that the marriage that she has with Dick now is in her control. At the same time,
Tommy’s insecure phone call to ask her vow for love increases her confidence to a level
that Nicole has never been in her life. Now she is completely drunk in her
achievements.
In Nicole’s quest for identity, now she shares no semblance with one in the past
when she feels in love with Dick. The innocent girl who loved Dick in a frantic state
now disappears. Confronted with Dick disillusionment and frustration, Nicole feels
nothing but contempt. She forgets about how she used to be so proud of and admires
Dick, how she could write letters to confess her love to Dick relentlessly in six months.
Nicole does not blame Dick’s decay in life to herself. She cries “You are a coward!
You’ve made a failure of your life, and now you want to blame it on me” (Tender 434).
To Nicole, she does not need to rely on Dick anymore. But she does not succeed in
building her own identity as an independent woman. It will be no doubt that she will
continue dating and having relationships with different men.
28
B. Rosemary’s Pursuit of Independence in Riviera

Rosemary used to follow everything that Mrs. Speers asked to do. But with the
shift of physical space, Rosemary’s identity begins to change. In Riviera, Rosemary met
Dick Diver. Here Dick treats Rosemary as a lady. Rosemary suddenly is no longer the
little girl who has to follow her mother’s instruction at home. For the first time
Rosemary wants to do something. Rosemary is a typical teenage girl who just gets out
of her parents’ control. But unlike any rebellious adolescent, it is her mother Mrs.
Speers that chooses to let Rosemary experience her life in her own will especially
concerning love life. Mrs. Speers’ failure to be a moral leader for Rosemary has been
analysed. She should have stopped Rosemary’s affection for Dick when Rosemary
confesses her feelings to her. But she shows no intention of doing so. In the novel, Mrs.
Speers cares not a little about her daughter’s feeling at all. “Your were brought up to
work—not especially to marry…whatever it happens it can’t spoil you because
economically you are a boy. Not a girl” (Tender 56). Mrs. Speers’ attitude toward
Rosemary is very clear now. She does not think of Rosemary as a girl. Perhaps because
of her two widowed marriage, Mrs. Speers does seem to possess a heart of stone which
is understandable concerning that it must be very exhausted and difficult to bring up a
girl all on her own. It is no wonder she wants Rosemary to be a boy economically. In the
early Twentieth Century, women are not endowed with equal job opportunities as men.
Mrs. Speers barely survives on the slim leavings of her two last husbands. Considering
Mrs. Speers’ life experience, her attitudes seem reasonable. But what Mrs. Speers has
done is a great damage for Rosemary to build her identity.
Being raised as a boy since childhood, Rosemary believes everything her mother
says. So she completely frightens when she finds she falls in love with Dick. Rosemary
initially denies her affection by claiming that she loves nobody else other than her
mother. But later she could not resist and hold her affection any more she cries and cries
her strong love to Mrs. Speers. As a teenager, first love was such a strong shock to
Rosemary. Due to Mrs. Speers’ lack of education on love, Rosemary does not know that
she could feel that way about anybody. In a way Rosemary fall in love with someone
before she realizes. Without parents’ guides, Rosemary blindly falls into the trap of
29
infatuation. In her eyes, Dick is “all complete”. Dick possesses every virtue that she
owns as well. Rosemary though being raised as a boy by Mrs. Speers, the sexual
instincts still appeal to her to fall in love. At that moment, Rosemary is as innocent as
“Daddy’s girl”.
But as a movie star engaging herself in the sordidness of Hollywood industry,
Rosemary could not possibly maintain herself. Mrs. Speers arranges her meeting with
Mr. Brady in order to help Rosemary to gain a better career and “launch her out and
away” (Tender 32). On the one hand, Rosemary was free to pursue her loved ones since
Mrs. Speers does not care while at the same time Mrs. Speers would like Rosemary to
do precisely what she was asked to do. Rosemary was trapped in the space between
independence and parental control. She was lost in the pursuit of her identity. In the
later reunion of Dick and Rosemary, they fail to have a sexual relationship. The failure
of the attempt was possibly Rosemary has changed. It has been three years since they
are apart. Though Rosemary does think of Dick as the ideal, she is not the innocent girl
anymore. Rosemary stops devoting all her attention to Dick anymore. While Dick is
with Rosemary, Rosemary as a celebrity almost has date at every night.
It is through Dick’s mouth that readers realize they are both not in love. But when
confronted with Dick’s jealousy, Rosemary does confess she does not feel the same way
about Dick as three years ago. Rosemary now is seeing another man Nicotera who could
be a good choice for marriage despite that Rosemary does not love him. Rosemary is
now “not especially to marry” influenced by her mother’s thoughts. Rosemary is
thought as a boy whose job is to make enough fortune from Mrs. Speers’ side. She
bursting out her unsatisfactory feelings to Dick demonstrates her innocence has
disappeared. For her work, she could be with someone frequently who holds affection to
her that she does not like so much. Unlike the desperate needs of being with Dick she
had three years ago, now Rosemary becomes more realistic and materialistic. The blind
and passionate love is not what she pursues now. Rosemary has failed to pursue her
identity and becomes one of the “souls in purgatory” she has encountered in Mr. Brady
stage room.
30
C. Dick’s Pursuit of Fame in the Shift of Physical Space

Dick’s pursuit of identity is always with the shift of being in different places. At
first, Dick is good son who follows his father’s guidance in New York and he aspires to
be a successful psychiatrist when he is just a college student. Then there comes the
turning point in his life when he meets Nicole in the clinic. He becomes Nicole’s doctor
and husband at the same time. In Riviera, Dick finds himself falling in love with
Rosemary. Finally, with the failure of his marriage with Nicole, Dick is finally in the
dilemma in his life practicing medicines in different small towns.
Dick is always holding dreams to achieve something great in life. Greatly
influenced by his father, Dick wants to be loved and right. As a doctor, he aspires to be
an upright psychiatrist who will be of great significance for writing influential medical
books. Now due to the death of Dick’s father, Dick has to embark again on the journey
pursue his identity in physical space.
Dick is a man of ambition. He has the greed for fame and good reputation which
could be no surprise that he is after money as well. Dick obviously knows that he
marrying Nicole is in no way a wise choice. But through the persuasion from Franz and
Doctor Dohmler, and his moral deficiencies in impotence rejecting women’s attraction
that Dick decides to marry Nicole. After his graduation from college, Dick becomes a
doctor with a bright future. It seems that he has great passion and talents in his
occupation. He always wants to write masterpieces that could help to last his name in
the history. During his marriage, Dick is constantly in the intention of finishing his great
work. But through the frequent change of physical space, Dick’s identity and his
recognition of who he really is begins to blur. He could not stick to his own original
plan. In the end, both of his enthusiasm towards life and ambition in work are gone due
to the influence from the physical space. Of course the completion of the work is
impossible.
As is discussed in the chapter one, Dick’s wish to be continually good following
her father’s lead is now hard for him to maintain due to the fact that his father has died
now. But apart from his father’s death, Dick is not likely to maintain his intention of
being a morally good man. While his father is alive, Dick’s sense of morality has been
31
greatly challenged. Dick’s relationship with Rosemary has taken a lot of pages in the
book one. At that time, Dick is greatly seduced by the beautiful movie star Rosemary,
who wants to confess her strong and deep affection to Dick just like what Nicole did
back then. Dick is certainly a man who does not know how to reject woman.
In fact, Dick thinks highly of himself. Just as his aspiration to be liked, Dick does
put in many efforts into pleasing everyone around him. When Rosemary first encounters
Dick on the beach of Riviera, Dick is trying to draw everyone’s attention to his little
performance of esoteric burlesque, which is also in a great contrast with his grave
expression. Now Dick succeeds in amusing every one into great laughter with every
tiny movement that he has executed. It reaches to the point that whatever he says and
does will release a burst of laughter. Dick wants to be the centre in every physical place
that he is in. In a way Dick has made him under the spotlight by trying to please
everyone with his efforts. To be liked means to be highly commented by others.
Through the constant appraise, Dick will naturally grow a sense of superiority that no
one will not like him.
There are a lot of times in the novel that Dick thinks the woman next to him is
showing their admiration to him, which eventually turns out the woman is just showing
the basic social politeness. Another instance should be the time which Nicole’s sister
Baby Warren asks Dick to escort Nicole back to the sanatorium. Dick thinks that Baby
Warren, knowing that he owns a bicycle is obviously in the intention trying to throw
them together making Dick and Nicole a couple. His marriage with Nicole is never
simply out of love. Even Nicole’s sister Baby Warren recognizes the fact that their
marriage is more of an exchange of benefits. Nicole needs the professional medical help
could be available at any moment because of mental illness, while it also brings many
benefits to Dick Diver. Dick is born from a clergyman family which indicates that his
father could not provide him the money and rich life that Nicole used to enjoy. Nicole’s
family money could be accounted as the decisive factor in his decision to marry Nicole.
When Dick made up his mind, he simply says: “Sweet propinquity and the Warren
Money” (Tender 226). When faced with Nicole’s pursuit, Dick rejects her confession in
the first place. Because as a qualified doctor as Dick thinks that he is, it is unmoral to
have relationship with the patient. But Dick is conflicting inside his heart. He has
32
already decided that he should end this abnormal relationship, at the same time the
biological urges make Dick keeps his dates with Nicole. When he senses that Nicole is
not in good state of mind, all that appears in his mind is that he wants to drink the
raindrops and touch her cheek.
Dick is not as upright as his father who is the clergyman. In his heart hides deeply
his sexual desire to have relationships the women around him. He finds it extremely
difficult to resist women. It is the problem that Dick has already been aware of before
the marriage. He realizes how deeply he is trapped in the matter of emotion. He cannot
control his emotion and stick to his decision. And he tries to find himself some valid and
strong antidote, which he fails to search out in the end.
To solve his problems, Dick has tried many methods but sadly enough none of
them works out. When Dick is on the journey to many different places with Nicole, it is
not merely to help Nicole recover from her illness. Dick is also on the way to trying to
heal himself.
Almost every hero in Fitzgerald’s novels holds the dreams of either having a great
achievement in his career or becoming a member in upper class. Dick aspires to achieve
both of two goals. First Dick wants to be the greatest psychiatrist. But in order to help
with writing, there is no enough Diver money to support him. The first step that Dick
chooses to do is to marry Nicole Warren, which does help Dick to run a clinic with the
financial support from Nicole’s sister Baby. Dick wants to be good and liked. His initial
plan is to be in a good marriage with Nicole and with the help of the Warren money, he
will be an extremely successful and rich doctor at the same time. With the constant
change of physical places, now Dick’s pursuit of identity seems to succeed. But because
of the mental problems, Dick is doomed to fail.
33
34
Chapter Three
Failed Reconstruction of Identity in Mental Space
Lefebvre, mental space is “the (topological) space of thoughts and utterances”

(Lefebvre 27) and “is the seat of a practice consisting in more than the application of
concepts, a practice that also involves misapprehension, blindness, and the test of lived
experience” (Lefebvre 297). In the space triad, mental space is highly affected by the
physical space and social space. Through the experiences in physical and social space,
the characters finally come to reconstruct their identity in their mental space.
In Tender Is the Night, the loss and pursuit of three characters’ identities are
thoroughly discussed from the social space and physical space. It is because of the time
and society that the characters are fallen into the crisis of self-recognition. Somehow
they fail to achieve their dreams. However difficult it is, they have to reconstruct their
identities in order to survive in the world, the process of which is mainly finished in the
mental space.
Fitzgerald, as one of the representative writers who depict and narrate stories and
characters of Jazz age, unsurprisingly set the story of Dick after the end of World War I.
Now after the loss and pursuit of their identities, the characters have to complete the
reconstruction through mental spaces. However, the loss of faith and belief permeates in
the mind of Americans of that time after witnessing the cruelties of the Great War and
the hypocritical government. The characters try to escape the reality by indulging into
excessive alcoholism and parties.
A. Nicole’s Dependence on Men

After Nicole’s separation with her father and her marriage with Dick, Nicole’s
mental illness is indeed getting better as time goes by.
Dick has been the qualified doctor and husband for Nicole most of the time. After
marrying Dick, Nicole successfully gets away from Mr. Warren. But as is discussed in
the previous chapter that Nicole needs someone to rely on since she is not independent.
It is almost arranged by destiny that Nicole falls in love with Dick in the first sight. And
35
Dick does live up to Nicole’s expectation of being a good husband. Nicole used to
possess great admiration to Dick because of his confidence and professional knowledge.
But now after years of care, Dick has been tormented and worn out heavily by Nicole’s
illness. Now Nicole finds Dick no long attractive to her.
Nicole’s change starts most obviously when she finds out that Dick is trying to
cheat on her. Same as Rosemary, Nicole should have been the innocent girl and holds
great expectation in having a perfect relationship with some one that she loves. During
the first few years of her marriage life with Dick, Nicole does have the best time of her
life. Perhaps in her mind, she does believe that Dick is the love of her life. But after
finding out that Dick has been cheating on her, Nicole falls into severely mental
breakdown. Now Nicole seems to give up on her unrealistic fantasies on love. She
decides to live for her own physical pleasure.
Nicole does not choose to confess her feeling to Dick right away. Instead, the first
thing that Nicole has done is to call Tommy Barban. In the novel, Tommy could be
regarded as the opposite of Dick. Tommy is a war activist while Dick suffers great
trauma in the Great War. Tommy is also physically strong while Dick on the contrary
focuses on developing his mental intelligence. The way Nicole is with Tommy does not
share the slightest semblance with that when she is with Dick. Receiving a higher
education, Dick knows how to behave himself in social activities but Tommy likes to
present his opinions directly. He might even try to have a dual with someone who holds
different view from him.
From the narration, Nicole does not seem to love Tommy Barban, but she does look
up to Tommy in a way that Fitzgerald has described him as a hero. In Nicole’s life, she
has desired to be wanted and liked, which could be explained by her mother’s early
death and Mr. Warren’s behaviour. When Nicole is writing letters to Dick, she keeps
emphasizing that she is useful for she could be an interpreter and she is willing to learn
so. By doing so, Nicole believes that Dick will not desert her. Now even though
Nicole’s illness has been cured, Nicole still likes to see that she is needed. Indeed, the
characters that Tommy has showed in the novel have made him somewhat a similar to
the ancient heroes in Greek mythologies. Different from Dick getting mentally hurt
through his experience in the war, Tommy has always wanted to prove and show his
36
Chapter Three Failed Reconstruction of Identity in Mental Space
strength in the wars. Nicole loves to see Tommy getting jealous of Dick for the sake of
her. As a matter of fact, it does not have to be Tommy Barban. Any other man who gets
jealous because of her will give Nicole as much pleasure. Now even though Nicole has
been fully recovered from her illness, Nicole still has little experience of relying on her
own. Now it seems that she does not love anyone else in the world. All she needs is a
strong shoulder which could protect her from the cruel society. Since her separation
with her dad, Nicole has been together with Dick Diver who has everything arranged for
her. But now Dick is no longer the strong and confident doctor that she used to admire
so much and looks up to. Nicole now is switching her emotion from Dick to Tommy.
Even though Tommy is not slightly similar to Dick, but one thing for certain is that
Tommy is a confident and strong male that Nicole could rely on fully. And one day that
if Tommy loses his strength and confidence as what happens to Dick, Nicole will turn
her focus to next man she admires without hesitation. Nicole could have been a
confident lady because of the wealth from her family. But because of her mental illness
and traumatic experience in her childhood, now she has lost capabilities of becoming
the independent human beings.
B. Rosemary’s Fall in Hollywood

The mental space of Rosemary is a tough one to analyze because in the novel
Fitzgerald hardly chooses to depict Rosemary’s mental activities, especially with the
fact that Rosemary disappears in the middle of the novel. But Book I is mainly talked
about from the perspective of Rosemary. So the analysis of Rosemary’s identity
reconstruction is mainly focused on the book one.
The previous chapters have analyzed Rosemary’s identity as a mommy’s girl and
her pursuit of identity being an independent woman. The reconstruction of Rosemary’s
identity would be mainly completed in her mental space. Mrs. Speers is a dominant
mother who has tried to arrange everything that she thinks is the best for Rosemary’s
development in her career without really caring about the things that Rosemary wants in
her life. Being in a close company with her mother, Rosemary would feel nothing weird
with the way she is treated. In her little mind, Mrs. Speers not only is her mother but
also her best friend. Now as she is in the society rather than just an innocent girl who
37
follows her mother’s lead. Rosemary has greatly changed.

When Rosemary arrives at Riviera and meets Dick for the first time, she is still like
a girl who has little experience. Rosemary has no exact definition on love. When Mrs.
Speers asks Rosemary whether she loves Dick or not, Rosemary’s reply was quite short
and firm by saying that there is no one else in the world she loves except her mother
Mrs. Speers. But soon in few days after being familiar with Dick and Nicole, she is now
completely and crazily in love with Dick. The excitement and affection that Dick has
brought to her is definitely something different from what she has towards her mother. It
is because of the encounter with Dick that Rosemary begins to understand what love
means.
Rosemary’s not fully civilized and mature when she meets Dick. So there are many
times in the novel that Rosemary presents her childish characteristics. In Rosemary’s
world, she thinks much differently from those other experienced adults. Dick’s rejection
of her affection would be of shock to inexperienced Rosemary. Even though she has
known that Dick marries Nicole and they seem to live a happy life, she still chooses to
fall in love the married man. In the second conversation that Rosemary has with Mrs.
Speers, she cries loudly her love for Dick. It seems that the first step to be an
independent woman for Rosemary would be to follow her instincts. What seems more
surprising is that besides Dick, Rosemary also appreciates Nicole who is thought as the
presentation of grace and elegance in her eyes.
Rosemary’s affection for Dick should be completely pure, for Dick is her first love.
When Rosemary meets Dick and Nicole on the Riviera Beach, it is time for Rosemary
to get rid of her mother’s control. For the first time in her life, she is beginning to think
of what she likes for herself. She loves to spend and squander her time by staying beside
Dick’s side. Rosemary’s insistent pursuit after Dick is finally about to succeed when
Dick finds himself no longer able to resist the temptation from Rosemary, but Nicole’s
breakdown interrupts their actions. Then the novel begins to talk about how Dick and
Nicole meet and get married. In the most pages of Book two, there hardly mentions
anything about Rosemary.
Rosemary’s innocence and purity which is presented in Book I is the quality that is
in great contrast with her occupation. Mrs. Speers has raised and trained Rosemary to be
38
a famous movie star. Immersing herself in the environment of the Hollywood, it will be
highly impossible for Rosemary to really maintain her innocence. Her reunion with the
director has already implied that she is losing her purity. Because when Rosemary is
faced with the director’s sexual desire which is almost the rule that every actress in
Hollywood industry has to follow, she takes it as something common and ordinary.
It is three years later when Rosemary reunites with Dick. Now the story is narrated
from Dick’s perspective. But the reader could still figure out what has happened to
Rosemary according to her discourses and actions when she is with Dick. Compared
with the girl that Dick used to know on the Riviera Beach, Rosemary has changed. One
of the most prominent changes is her attitude towards Dick. Contrary to being
completely mesmerized by the Dick’s allure, now Rosemary does not seem so crazy
about Dick anymore. When Dick is with her, Rosemary goes out to have fun while
deserting Dick alone. What’s more, there appears another man in Rosemary’s life other
than Dick, whom claimed by Rosemary she is not so crazy about. Even Dick has found
out that Rosemary is not in love with him now. In Rosemary’s confrontation with Dick,
it is surprising to see that Rosemary has completely become a different person that she
does not think highly of love any more. For Rosemary, to be with someone does not
have to be out of love. Though she holds less affection for Nictora, Rosemary would not
mind marrying Nictora if he could be of great help to her career. Now in Rosemary’s
eyes, it seems nothing else matters apart from fame and being a successful actress.
Rosemary has graduated from her innocent and unrealistic fantasy toward Dick.
Now though Rosemary is still attracted to Dick physically, they hold no strong love for
each other. Now Rosemary seems to retire to the expectation that Mrs. Speers has for
her. Mr. Speers wants Rosemary to be a boy when it comes to money. Rosemary could
continue her girly fantasy of love. But in order to make her success in the industry,
Rosemary should gradually become realistic and reach the top in her career.
After long years of Hollywood life, Rosemary has successfully adapted herself to
the life of Vanity Fair. Rosemary has grown a stone of heart. Transforming from an
innocent girl, now she has become a sophisticated and experienced celebrity. And just as
her identity being an actress, Rosemary’s discourses frequently fail to match her actions.
When Rosemary is interrogated her relationship with Nictora, she still emphasizes that
39
Dick is the only one that she loves besides her mother Mrs. Speers. But Rosemary does
not believe that she and Dick could end up being together eventually. The narration of
Rosemary in the novel ends where she has the final conversation with Dick in Dick’s
room. Confused by her emotions for Dick and the influence from the Hollywood
extravagance, Rosemary bursts into tears and somehow loses her directions in life as
well when she is asked by Dick how she is thinking about her relationships with Dick
and Nictora. But no matter how Rosemary has been feeling towards Dick, What is for
certain is that Rosemary will keep on her pursuit of fame in Hollywood.
C. Dick’s Decay in Lust

After the loss and pursuit of the identity in social and physical space, it is time to
analyze how Dick finally fails to reconstruct his identity in mental space which finally
leads to his tragedy of life.
Dick is trying to act and behave according to his perfect moral belief as he used to
be, but his sexual desire toward woman has always been a great issue. In the beginning
of the novel, Dick seems to have all that he dreams, being the focus of his minor group,
his masterpiece’s upcoming publication and having a seemingly beautiful and tender
wife. But Dick’s mental issues have finally led to his fall.
Dick once embarks on the battlefield of First World War. From Dick’s own words
that he does not hold guns and actually join in the battles, Dick is still mentally
traumatized after returning from the battlefield. Dick frequently has nightmares
dreaming about himself being on the battlefield. Just other American youngsters who
volunteer to join the army believing that they are fighting for justice. Now as the war
ends, it is revealed to them that they have been cheated completely by the lies from the
government. Witnessing the cruelties and blood on the battles will no doubt leave great
damages to their mental health. Dick keeps dreaming about the scene which he
experiences during the war. Under such a great pressure for a long time, Dick’s mental
condition will get deteriorating.
Dick’s marriage with Nicole is another problem that has been afflicting him greatly.
Nicole is getting better and better in the marriage with the love and support from Dick,
instead Dick’s mental condition gets worse and worse as time goes by. Dick has
40
underestimated the influence that marrying a schizophrenic patient. The double identity
that Dick possesses is a great burden for him. Being a qualified husband means that
Dick should give emotional support and constant care to Nicole whenever she needs it.
While as a professional doctor, it is also very important to keep a sober mind and tries to
offer medical help to the ill patient. In the marriage life, Dick obviously will suffer great
mental affliction trying to cure his wife and patient’s disease.
Nicole’s mental breakdown has been narrated three times in the novel, two of
which are because she witnesses Dick’s infidelity. Dick is always trying to repress his
obsession of having relationship with other women. The repression has caused great
mental troubles for Dick. Gradually, Dick stops writing his books and he finds it
increasingly difficult to reject women. Being a caretaker for a patient every day would
be an excruciating job for anyone. It seems that Nicole has recovered from
schizophrenia after long years of the medical treatment, and Dick has known that Nicole
is having affair with Tommy Barban. But he pays no attention to it. Dick begins to
follow his biological urges and stops caring about Nicole any more. After long years of
tiring marriage life, now all Dick wants to do is to leave Nicole for a while and get a
fresh breath. So Dick chooses to have relationships with Rosemary the woman who has
been haunting him since they first meet. In the end Dick is completely lost. Dick
chooses to be an ordinary clinic doctor in different towns for the rest of his life.
Dick could have a successful and wealthy life if he maintains his image as the
perfect and confident husband for Nicole. Nicole admires him and needs his medical
care constantly and the Warrens will provide Dick with financial supports because
according to Baby’s words that they owe them. It has come to the questions for the
readers that why Dick has to betray Nicole and behave infidelity in their marriage. To
pursue success and wealth, it seems that Dick had better stick to his marriage with
Nicole even he does not hold any affections toward Nicole any more. But as being a
round character, Dick does not possess only a stereotypical characteristic.
It is true that Dick wants to be wealthy. At the same time under the deep influence
of his father, he also wants to achieve something great and realize his great ambitions.
He uses the Warren money mostly on his medical studies and some necessary expenses
in the clinic. However, after living with the Schizophrenic patient who has been his wife
41
for six years the time when Dick meets Rosemary on the Riviera Beach, there is nothing
but fatigue and tiredness that has left in Dick’s heart. Dick has repressed his biological
instincts to be good and to be liked as before. Now after Nicole’s mental breakdowns,
Dick begins to realize his increasing impotence in the marriage. Now trying to save
himself, Dick chooses to give himself a break. Dick no long rejects Rosemary’s pursuit
and love. He begins to hit on every girl that seems attracting to him. In this way, Dick is
trying to save himself by indulging into the sexual pleasures. Dick has completely
become a different person. He is aware that he could bring happiness to no one.
Rosemary’s not crazy about him as she used to be. Nicole tries to cheat on him and Dick
is no long the centre in his little group where he has caught everyone’s attention no
matter what he is doing. Now that Dick’s dream and ambition has disappeared, he
begins to decay in the lust of women.
42
Conclusion
The thesis explores Tender Is the Night, the most ambitious work created by
Fitzgerald, a famous writer of the 20th century. In the detailed narration of the story of
American youngsters in the 1920s, Fitzgerald succeeds in revealing the decadence and
darkness of America. America in the 1920s was indeed in a state of social chaos and
cultural confusion and American individuals were seeking the answer to the question of
who they were.
Space is never examined as a static, prior or objective phenomenon but as
unremittingly and dynamically constructed tool of thought and action. Based on close
reading of Tender Is the Night and taking Lefebvre’s spatial criticism theory as the
theoretical foundation, this thesis interprets the identity construction of the characters in
terms of physical space, social space, and mental space.
Social space works as a tool for the analysis of society. In social space, the
characters in Tender Is the Night encounter their identity crisis due to the change of their
family relations. For Nicole, the early death of her mother and the abnormal
father-daughter relationship made her unable to recognize her identities correctly. Lack
of paternal love and the immoral incest she had with her father eventually led to her
mental illness. Raised mainly by her mother, Rosemary used to be an obedient and
innocent girl who follows Mrs. Speers’ instruction. After her encounter with Dick,
Rosemary begins to challenge her mother’s authority. Dick used to regard his father as
the role model and behaves well as what his father told him. But after his father’s death,
Dick’s faith suddenly collapses. Without the guidance of his father, Dick gradually loses
his identity in social space.
In the change of physical space, the characters struggle to pursue their identity and
try to realize who they are. Nicole endeavours to regain her health now that she is
separate with her father Mr. Warren. In the Sanatorium, Nicole encounters Dick Diver
and falls in love with the doctor immediately. In order to recover from the mental illness,
Nicole marries Dick. Rosemary’s desire to pursue independence from her mother starts
with their travel to Riviera. In the social activities that she had with Dick small group,
Rosemary gradually realizes that she is not the little girl that needs her mother’s
43
guidance. Dick’s pursuit of identity is always with the shift of being in different places.
Dick aspires to be a successful psychiatrist when he is just a college student. At home
under his father’s influence, Dick tries to be right. In Zurich, he marries Nicole for the
Warren money. In a word, it is fame that Dick always pursues.
Mental space is an internal and subjective space. After long years of medical help
from Dick, now Nicole has recovered from illness. But lack of enough social experience,
Nicole has no knowledge of how to live on her own. So instead of living independently,
Nicole continues to seek other males to rely on. Rosemary, poisoned by the decadence
and corruption of Hollywood Industry, has become one of the ghosted actresses she
once met in Brady’s stage room. In Rosemary’s reunion with Dick, though she still
would like to be with him, Rosemary is no longer the innocent girl that Dick first
encounters in Riviera Beach. After his father’s death, Dick’s role model ceases to exist.
From social space to physical space, Dick is now completely lost. He has to reconstruct
himself in mental space. But because of his moral deficiency, Dick is completely
incapable of reconstructing his identity. So in the mental space, Dick tries to ease the
pain by escaping from the reality. Dick does not want to become great and gain some
achievement now. Mentally perplexed, Dick is incapable of continuing his identity as
Nicole’s husband and an ambitious doctor. In the end of the novel, Dick Diver becomes
an ordinary doctor who loses both his ambitions on career and passions for life.
44
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47
蒋桂红[Jiang, Guihong]、郭棲庆[Guo, Luqing]，

“疯癫•女性意识•社会批判——《夜
色温柔》中尼科尔的疯癫研究”，《外语研究》，33.6（2016）：99-103。
48

从空间的角度解读《夜色温柔》的身份建构 况嘉

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单位代码 10635

A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment

COLLEGE OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

Chapter One Identity Crisis in Social Space ....................................................................12

Chapter Two Pursuit of Identity in Physical Space ......................................................... 23

Chapter Three Failed Reconstruction of Identity in Mental Space ................................. 35

Key Words: Identity; Lefebvre; Spatial Narrative; Tender Is the Night

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (1896-1940) is regarded as a one of the most

Identity Crisis in Social Space

In The Production of Space, Henri Lefebvre puts forward a significant concept:

A. Nicole: The Schizophrenic Patient Caused by the Immoral Incest

As an American girl who grows up from a wealthy family, Nicole’s attitudes

B. Rosemary: A Girl’s Struggle to Get Rid of Her Mother’s Control

C. Dick’s Collapse of Faith after His Father’s Death

influence under his father.

Pursuit of Identity in Physical Space

material supports in the frequent change of physical places.

A. Nicole’s Pursuit of Health in Sanatorium

B. Rosemary’s Pursuit of Independence in Riviera

C. Dick’s Pursuit of Fame in the Shift of Physical Space

Failed Reconstruction of Identity in Mental Space

Lefebvre, mental space is “the (topological) space of thoughts and utterances”

A. Nicole’s Dependence on Men

B. Rosemary’s Fall in Hollywood

follows her mother’s lead. Rosemary has greatly changed.

C. Dick’s Decay in Lust

Massey, Doreen. Space, Place and Gender. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota

蒋桂红[Jiang, Guihong]、郭棲庆[Guo, Luqing]，

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从空间的角度解读《夜色温柔》的身份建构况嘉

从空间的角度解读《夜色温柔》的身份建构况嘉