Effeminate Masculinity in F. Scott Fitzgerald'sTender is the Night

Abstract

Tender is the Nightis a storyset in the hedonistic high society of Europe during the ‘Roaring Twenties’. A wealthy schizophrenic, Nicole Warren falls in love with Dick Diver-her psychiatrist. The resultis saga of Dick Diver’s troubled marriage andhis circle of friends, unhappy love affairs, a duel, incest and the problems inherent in the possession of great wealth.Dickmarries Nicole Warren for money, one of his mental patient. He is intelligent and his work is the most important things to him butwhen he has an affair with Rosemary, his marries to Nicole start to fail over time. Dick himself starts to fall apart both physically and emotionally. He unable to run his business as well as family life. So he finally fails to maintain good relation, suffers from emotional decisions and jealousy. Then he starts to drink excessively that leads to personal decline, alienate his friends, ruin his career and destroy his charming and handsome youth life and lives an unsuccessful life at last.Here, Fitzgerald, by projecting the protagonist Dick Diver’s masculinityeffeminate, reveals how the conventional notion of masculinity is effacing in the western world along with the social, political and economic changes.