The reflection of fitzgerald`s life in tender is the night - USD Repository

  

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THE REFLECTION OF FITZGERALD’S LIFE

  

IN TENDER IS THE NIGHT

AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra

in English Letters

  

By

Sunardi

Student Number : 934214035

Student Register Number : 930051120106130035

  

ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS

FACULTY OF LETTERS

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY

YOGYAKARTA

2000

  

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

  First of all, I would like to thank God for giving me the strength to finally complete this thesis after all those problems that prevent me to finish this thesis. Because of His blessings that I finally could complete this thesis.

  Secondly, I would like to show my gratitude to Drs. Bambang Hendarto , M.Hum who has been willing to guide me in the beginning of writing this thesis. My deepest gratitude goes to Dra. Th. Enny A.. M.A. who is willing to spend her precious time to guide me in correcting and improving this study. Without their guidance, I will not be able to complete this thesis in time.

  I would like to show my deepest gratitude to my father and mother who have been patient enough in encouraging me to finish the thesis. Their prayers and blessing will always be in my heart. My special thanks also go to my sister and brother, I thank them for all their understanding and support. I dedicate this thesis to all of them to show my respect and love .

  Last but not the least, I would like to thank Utari, Hans, Yoesiantoro and Suryo who are continuously warning me with the dead line in submitting this paper. These guys are indeed friends, not a friend in need. Thanks for your encouragement in the last minutes before I am being dropped out from my study because of being unable to complete the thesis.

  Sunardi

  

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  v TABLE OF CONTENT

  PAGE OF TITLE…………………………………………………………………………..i PAGE OF APRROVAL…………………………………………………………………..ii PAGE OF APRROVAL………………………………………………………………….iii ACKNOWLEDGMENT………………………………………………………………....iv TABLE OF CONTENT…………………………………………………………………..v ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………..vii ABSTRAK……………………………………………………………………………...viii

  CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………...1 A. Background of the Study…...…………………………………………1 B. Problem Formulation………………………………………………….5 C. Objectives of the Study……………………………………………….5 D. Benefits of the Study………………………………………………….6 II THEORETICAL REVIEW………………………………………………...7 A. Elements of Literature...……………………………………………….7 B. Literature and Biography……………………………………………...9 C. The Biography of Fitzgerald…………………………………………11 III METHODOLOGY………………………………………………………..17 IV ANALYSIS…….…………………………………………………………..21 A. The elements of the story which reflect Fitzgerald’s life………...….21 A.1. Setting………………………………………………………......22 A.2. Characters………………………………………………………28 A.3. Theme……………………………………………………….….41

  B. Fitzgerald’s intentions in writing Tender Is the Night……………....42

  V Conclusion………………………………………………………………...…46 BIBLIOGRAPY…………………………………………………………………………49 APPENDIX………………………………………………………………………….…..50

  

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ABSTRACT

  Sunardi : The Reflection of Fitzgerald’s life in Tender Is the Night

  Tender Is the Night is Fitzgerald’s longest and most ambitious novel intended to

  become his masterpiece. The novel reveals the tragic story of a man who is ruined by his own faults. It is the story about the young and clever psychiatrist who marries his wealthy mental patient because his need of being needed by her and because he likes to enter the top class society. The novel itself strongly reflects the biography of the author although the author still uses his creative invention in writing the book.

  The objectives of this study is to find out which elements of the story which reflects the life of the author and what is the intentions of the author in writing the novel by putting his own life into the story.

  The approach used to analyze this thesis is the biographical approach. In order to find out what are the similarities and differences between the novel and the author’s life, we have to know the life of the author thoroughly. The biographical approach seems to be the most appropriate tool in comparing and analyzing the novel and the life of the author. From the analysis we will be able to see how sometimes author is inspired by his own life in writing his book.

  Conclusively, the setting, characters, and theme of Tender is the Night are analyzed as the elements of the novel that reflect Fitzgerald’s life. The setting of the novel is taken from Fitzgerald’s experience while staying in Europe. The major characters of the novel are also inspired by Fitzgerald’s life. The theme of the novel is directly drawn from Fitzgerald’s life story, specially about the decline of his writing career. From the study of the novel and the life of Fitzgerald, we can see that Fitzgerald writes the novel as to reveal his heroic feeling and his decline in writing caused by the domestic problems with his wife . Fitzgerald puts his life into the story as he wants his readers to understand how much troubles he has been facing in completing the novel in nine years. He also wants his readers to learn that being disillusioned with something we wish to have will only lead us to an unhappy life.

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ABSTRAK

  Sunardi : The Reflection of Fitzgerald’s life in Tender Is the Night

  Tender Is the Night adalah novel Fitzgerald yang paling panjang and ambisius

  yang di harapkan menjadi puncak karyanya. Novel ini mengungkapkan cerita tragis tentang seseorang yang jatuh karena kesalahannya sendiri. Buku ini bercerita tentang seorang dokter yang mau mengawini pasiennya yang menderita sakit jiwa dan kebetulan kaya raya. Dokter itu mau kawin dengan pasien itu dengan alasan karena dia akan merasa selalu dibutuhkan oleh seseorang dan dia juga akan memasuki klas sosial yang tinggi. Buku ini sendiri secara kuat merefleksikan kisah hidup yang di alami pengarangnya walau pengarang buku ini masih malakuakn kreasi dalam menuliskan pengalaman hidupnya.

  Tujuan dari penulisan skripsi ini adalah untuk mencari bagian-bagian dari novel ini yang secara meyakinkan merefleksikan kisah hidup pengarangnya dan juga untuk menemukan apa tujuan pengarang dalam menulis novel ini.

  Pendekatan yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah pendekatan biografi. Untuk mengetahui persamaan dan perbedaan antara buku ini dan hidup pengarangnya, kita harus mengetahui secara detil biografi pengarang buku ini. Pendekatan biografi sangat tepat di pakai dalam menganalisa skripsi yang bertujuan untuk melihat sejauh mana buku ini mengungkapkan kisah hisup pengarangnya.

  Sebagai kesimpulannya, dengan membandingkan antara seting, karakter, dan tema dari novel in dengan kisah hidup pengarangnya. Setind dalam novel ini ditulis Fitzgerald berdasarkan pengalamannya ketika dia menetap di Eropa. Karakter utama dalam buku ini juga merupakan tuangan inspirasi Fitzgerald baik dengan hidupnya sendiri, istrinya, dan orang lain yang dia pernah kenal. Tema novel juga merupakan gambaran kisah tragis hidup Fitzgerald.Dari perbandingan antara novel ini dengan hidup pengarangnya, kita bisa melihat bahwa Fitzgerald menulis buku ini dengan tujuan untuk mengungkapkan perasaannya yang berjiwa satria, dan kisah kehancuran karier menulisnya yang disebabkan oleh masalah rumah tangga dengan istrinya. Fitzgerald banyak menuliskan kisah hidupnya dalam buku ini juga dengan tujuan agar para pembacanya bisa mengerti betapa banyak masalah dalam hidup yang harus dia hadapi dalam menyelesaikan novel in selama sembilan tahun. Fitzgerald juga ingin agar para pembacanya bisa mengambil pelajaran bahwa kalau kita terilusi untuk menginginkan sesuatu hal yang sulit kita capai, akhirnya kita akan menderita sendiri.

  

viii back to the reality of life. Although it is the reflection of human life, literature does not merely copy life as it is. It is always recreated in a new and different way. Literature is also presented in an interesting and beautiful way. Indeed it enchants us to read it.

  Literature is needed in our lives because it pleases us. We like reading any literary works since there are some impulses behind our need of reading the works. In

  

Understanding to the Study of Literature William Henry Hudson declares that we

  enjoy reading literary works because it is important for our self-expression, for our interest in what other people do, for our interest in the reality of world in which we live, for our fulfillment of our imagination, and for our love of its form and beauty. ( 1958:11 )

  Literature is able to please us because what is expounded there is about our own lives. It is a kind of mirror that reflects ourselves. It is the nature of every man that we are interested in and curious about the way people live their lives. Trough literature we can see how people live with their cultural background differently. In his book, Understanding Fiction, Francis Conolly says:

  We read because of a hunger for information, or amusement, or solace, because of an appetite for truth that seems to grow by what it feeds on. Men read to discover themselves in their world, to assert special roles in the universe, to learn the meaning of the personal struggles in which they are engaged. ( 1955:1 )

  2 Literature is then created because it fulfils our need of pleasures and aesthetic feelings by imitating our lives or created life from the process of creative invention of the authors. In writing his works, usually an author uses either his experience in life or his imagination in order to dramatize his works or to make them more interesting.

  Trough literature we will learn a great deal of things. We may learn the cultural context which is completely new and different from our daily life and activities. We may even encounter with people from different social background and culture. Indeed, literature is very rich with the disparities between one culture and another. Literature also enables us to recognize human problems and struggles as to help us develop our mature sensibility and compassion for all aspects of our lives. Literature will provide us with abundant knowledge, understanding, and perception of which of course helpful in our process of growing mature and wise.

  By reading a great literary work we will exercise our emotion through excitement, hope, laughter, fear, sympathy, or even regret. We can make any comparison between the positive and negative things we may find in a literary work. From the comparison we make, we can judge or decide what is good and what is bad for our lives. Literature really assists us in shaping our judgment about ourselves.

  Among many forms of literature, fiction is one of the forms which is widely read. It is the most famous form of literature which many people prefer to read and enjoy. People prefer to read it because of its content, simplicity, and beauty. Fiction itself is a made-up story telling about characters and their problems. Philip Stevick in

  The Theory of The Novel states:

  The novel, more than any other genre, is capable of containing large, developed, consistent images of people, and this is one of the reasons that anyone reads novels. The novel, more than any other genre can give form to a set of attitudes regarding society, history, and the general culture of which the novel is a part. ( 1967:1ff )

  3 F. Scott Fitzgerald is one of the modern American writers who is highly praised for his craftmanship in writing. He is the writer who voiced the Jazz Age and its hilarious and gay time during the Twenties. Many critics regard him as the spokesman of the age. He was the most important and representative writer of the 1920's. His writing career started with his first novel written during his college years at Princeton. His first novel was This Side of Paradise and it brought him immediately into a fame when it was published in 1920. After writing the novel, Fitzgerald wrote another novel called The Beautiful and Damned which was also successful. His writing career reached its highest point by the writing of his third novel The Great Gatsby. It is a novel about the Jazz Age and the American dreams. Fitzgerald was admitted as a great writer for his ability and talent in writing his third novel. The way he used his craftmanship in writing the novel was so perfect that he became the most famous writer during the Twenties in America.

  After reading Fitzgerald's works, people start noticing that there are similarities between his life and his books. They are convinced by the facts that Fitzgerald frequently puts his own life and experience in most of his works. Some of his works in a way really resemble Fitzgerald's life although Fitzgerald still uses his creative invention in writing his books. People believe that Fitzgerald reflects his life into his story because they can easily recognize it in the book. They start believing that Fitzgerald has projected himself in the story he writes. By comparing his life and his stories people can see how much Fitzgerald uses his life , experience, and his feelings as the inspirations of his works.

  After the publication of The Great Gatsby in 1925, Fitzgerald seemed to loose his craftmanship because he could not produce any new novels except some short stories for commercial magazines for sometimes. After nine years of bareness, finally Fitzgerald could finish his forth novel entitled Tender Is the Night. In this new novel

  4 Fitzgerald wrote the story of a young psychiatrist who married his wealthy patient suffering from schizophrenia because of an incestuous attack from her father.

  Tender Is the Night is the longest novel Fitzgerald had ever written.

  Fitzgerald intended the novel as his masterpiece as he was not really satisfied with his previous novel. The book itself had become the legend before it was published in 1934. People had been curious enough to wait Fitzgerald's new book to publish since he had promised them to write a better book. Because of the domestic problems Fitzgerald had with his wife, he could only complete the book in nine years. This long period of waiting had generated high expectations among people and especially the reviewers.

  When Tender Is the Night was finally published in 1934, there were various reaction from people as a public reader and critics. The reviewers were not hostile, nor did they attack Fitzgerald for writing the unfashionable subject of the extravagant life practiced by the Americans expatriates in Europe as written in Tender Is the Night. They were only expressing their disappointment since they had expected some improvements of Fitzgerald's craftmanship in the book, but in fact they did not find it. The novel was less appreciated and in a way it was a failure for Fitzgerald. These reviews are well collected by Andrew Turnbul in his book titled F. Scott Fitzgerald, a

  biography

  Despite the hard criticism of the book, actually Tender Is the Night in some respects was better than Fitzgerald's previous novel, The Great Gatsby. It was also the most ambitious project Fitzgerald had ever intended to write. In his book entitled

  The Literature of The United States, Cunliffe states:

  The reviewers were too hard on Tender Is the Night though recent critics have more than redressed the balance. In some respects it is a better book than The

  Great Gatsby; it is more ambitious and reveals an even more sensuously alert

  intelligence. Tender Is the Night is abundantly talented. ( 1959:279 )

  5 On the other hand, some other critics also give a good judgement about the book. According to Henry Seidel Candy in F Scott Fitzgerald, In his own Time, edited by Brucolly, Tender Is the Night is interesting and brilliant. In theme, setting, characterization and in the difficult art of narrative, the book promises its important .( 1971:371 )

  Having read Tender is the Night, the writer of this thesis has become interested in the richness of the theme, characterization, and setting of the story. The novel reveals the description of human characters and relationship in the era of hedonism in which Fitzgerald had experienced by himself. To some extends, the characters , setting and theme of the novel reflect novel reflects Fitzgerald's life and experience . Based on his pre analysis, the writer is curious enough to find out what are the similarities and differences between Fitzgerald’s life and the novels, particularly in Tender is the Night. Acknowledging that Fitzgerald is also famous for his semi-autobiographical works, the writer of this thesis has decided to analyze this subject as the object of his thesis.

  B. Problem Formulation

  In conducting the analysis, the writer formulates the discussion into two problems as follows:

  1. What are the elements of the story that reflect Fitzgerald's life?

  2. What does Fitzgerald want to convey by writing the novel?

  C. Objectives of theStudy

  The objectives of this study is to answer the problems formulated above. By analyzing the elements of the story such as characters, setting, and theme, we will find out how far does Fitzgerald put his life into the story. We will see how he uses the

  6 characters, setting, plot, and theme as to expound his own life, his tragic marriage with Zelda, his experience while staying in Europe as the sources of the novel.

  By discussing the second problem formulation, we will see what are Fitzgerald’s intentions in writing the novel. From this discussion we will be able to see what does actually Fitzgerald intend to say or do by presenting his life into the story.

  The writer likes to conduct this study because of several reasons. By conducting the analysis we will be able to see how very close the relation between Fitzgerald's life and most of his works are, especially his life experience with Tender

  

Is the Night. This study will enable us to see how the biographical information are

  sometimes very significant to an author's work. By acquiring an author's biography we will have a better understanding and appreciation of his work. From the analysis of the study we will see what does Fitzgerald create in the story and what kind of life experiences inspiring him in the writing of the novel. In short we will have a deeper and better appreciation toward the close relation between Fitzgerald and Tender Is the Night.

CHAPTER II THEORETICAL REVIEW A. Elements of Literature As stated on the previous chapter , the writer of this study would like to

  analyze the element of the novel related to the biography of its author. After reading through the novel and making the comparison between Tender Is the Night and Fitzgerald’s life, the writer is curious enough to prove his first hypothesis that in some aspects, the novel directly or indirectly resembles Fitzgerald’s life. To back up his hypothesis into a solid analysis, the writer needs the tools to conduct his study. In conducting the analysis, the writer would like to limit his study on the elements of the novel which are obviously and clearly presented by Fitzgerald as to reflect his life. Among many elements of the novel, the writer found that the setting, characters, and theme are clearly created from Fitzgerald’s life and his experiences.

  A.1. Setting

  In Fiction, Roberts and Jacobs describes some terms for the description of setting. According to them, setting is a place where the characters in the fiction live and move. Setting in here covers the natural environment, the time, space, time, weather, light, cloth, building, etc. What is important to be notified from this term is that setting has a strong influence to the characters. A certain setting is chosen for

  8 the background of the novel because of its strong reasons in influenting the characters’ way of thinking, living, or behaving.( Roberts and Jacobs: 190) In

  

Understanding Fiction, Conolly further emphasizes the importance of setting to

  other elements of the story “ Setting is in a sense the time, place, and concrete situation of the narrative, the web of environment in which characters spin out their destinies”. ( 1954 : 14 )

  A.2. Characters

  There are many descriptions of characters described by writers. In describing this term, they put some stresses to its importance toward the story. On the other hand, sometimes we are also confused its description with the description of characterization. To avoid this confusion, we should first distinguish the description between character and characterization. In The Mirrors and The Lamps, Abrams describes characters as the persons in a dramatic or narrative work, endowed with moral and dispositional qualities that are expressed in what they say and they do. ( 1971 :20 )

  Characterization is clearly described by Roberts and Jacobs as the major traits of the characters. A character may be characterized as lazy, hotheaded, stubborn, ambitious, honest, brave and so on. ( 1987 : 119 ) From the descriptions between characters and characterization above, we will not be confused anymore with the two terms which are different from one another.

  9 A.3. Theme As one of the elements in the narrative works, theme is the most important aspect in the story. A writer usually starts writing his work after finding an idea for the story he is about to write. Theme is not necessarily stated or implied directly in the story. It may be implied in the whole story and interpreted in a single short sentence freely. However, the theme is not merely a moral teaching or something like this ( 1987 : 318 ).

  Roberts and Jacobs further write that the theme of the story is supposed to be developed from the story itself and that it embodies the implied idea in the story. A careful reading and clear thinking is needed in catching the idea of the story correctly. People may have different idea from the same story they read, it may happen either because they have different point of view in seeing a thing or because they sense something differently. Literature itself is very open for different interpretations as long as we still stick to the facts found in the story.

  In discussing the relation between literature and biography, Welleck and Warren exclaim the importance of an author behind his work. From what an author writes, we can study his experience in his life, his personalities, or even his feelings written in his works. They further describe the different functions of biography in literary study :

  10 Biography can be judged in relation to the light it throws on the actual production of poetry : but we can of course, defend it and justify it as a study of the man of genius, of his moral, intellectual, and emotional development, which has its own intrinsic interest; and finally we can think of biography as affording materials for a systematic study of the psychology of the poet and the poetic process (1970:75).

  From these two points of view on the function of literary work related to the biographical information of its author, the writer will adopt the first point of view in which a literary work is used as a useful tool for studying the artist who works on his art works. By using the biographical information in our literary study, we will be able to see what an author witnesses in his life such as his travels, the landscape and cities he sees, his personal acquaintances with others and even his growth, mature and decline as an author.

  There are many critics and scholars of the literature using the biographical information as means of critical considerations. More recent critics have gone further in using the biography as the way to deal with the body of an author's work. They tend to explain the work of art in relation with the outline of the author's life. For example, in his study of “Tennyson”, Sir Harold Nicolson divides the poet's art into periods, then he judges and analyses the poetry and Tennyson's with the journal of sea voyages Melville made in his life. (Danziger and Jonson, 1961: 129 - 30)

  11 At the end of their discussion about biography and literature, Welleck & Warren argue that even though there is a close relation between an author's life and his work, the relation is not as simple as cause and effect relationship. The author will rearrange his life and experience, he may even dramatise them so that they loose their personal sense and become simply concrete common human material. Therefore a careful scrutiny is very important to be implemented in comparing his biography and his work ( 1970 : 79 ).

  Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896, in St Paul, Minnesota. His father was a gentleman with beautiful Southern manners and his mother was an Irish descendant whose father had emigrated from Ireland in 1850.

  As the grocery business of Fitzgerald's grandfather was flourishing, Fitzgerald had been living at St Paul's most important residential street, Summit Avenue. The family lived in a huge house called Victorian McQuilland Mansion. The house in a way represented the security of wealth to Fitzgerald's life. especially his education. From his mother Fitzgerald learned about the passion for literature and from his father's character, he learned a great tradition of gentility.

  In 1908 Fitzgerald started his first schooling by going to St Paul Academy, a private boy school. Although his family was not really rich. Fitzgerald was always encouraged to uphold the importance of education and of material and social success. During his study in this elementary school, Fitzgerald had been

  12 showing his interest in writing. He wrote a mystery story based on the history of the United State of America and the happenings on the city. Although he was not popular at his school, Fitzgerald had managed to publish his short stories in the student paper. He even wrote two short plays entitled A Regular Fix and The Girl from Lazy J.

  In 1911 Fitzgerald entered Newman Academy in Hacken Sack, New Jersey. He was sent to a boarding school after his parents had noticed that he neglected his school. Fitzgerald did so because he did not like the behaviour of his classmates, who considered him as an outsider for being poorer than the others. Although his family always lived in the most important area, they were in fact living socially on the edge of it. Starting from this point Fitzgerald was anxious enough about his social environment. In his secondary school Fitzgerald wrote two plays entitled

  The Captured Shadow and The Coward.

  In September 1913 Fitzgerald entered Princeton University. Here he soon became a member of The Triangle Club which later would give him a way for his literary career. It was the influential social organization organizing an annual music show. Fitzgerald wrote Fie! Fi! Fi! and The Evil Eye for the club.

  While studying at Princeton, Fitzgerald meet Father Signourney Fay, John Peale Bishop and Edmun Wilson. From his initiation with those gentlemen Fitzgerald was encouraged to write. He also realized that writing would only be a way he could do to gain his lost popularity and shattered social status. By the end of 1917 Fitzgerald finished the first draft of This Side of Paradise. Being immature

  13 and imperfect, the manuscript was rejected by publisher. The publisher encouraged Fitzgerald to improve the manuscript. Fitzgerald was disappointed and he ignored it for a while since he had to serve for the army. While he was stationed in Alabama.

  Fitzgerald meet Zelda Sayre, his future wife, in Montgomery.

  Being discharged from the army, Fitzgerald worked seriously on his first manuscript. Once again he realized that writing was the only thing he could do to conform himself as a man with dignity. In this 1920 This Side of Paradise was published and it turned out to be a successful one. Fitzgerald was finally convinced by himself that he could write and be successful. By the success of the book Fitzgerald could earn a lot of money and most importantly his popularity. What made him happier was that Zelda Sayre, his girlfriend reaffirmed her love from Alabama soon after she heard about Fitzgerald's success as a writer. She told Fitzgerald that she still loved him very much and that she could not forget him.

  This Side of Paradise itself reflects Fitzgerald's life while studying at

  Princeton. It records what he felt and experienced during his college years. Through Amory Blaine, Fitzgerald put his preparatory years at school at Princeton. This book also notes the moral decadence and protest against the old tradition practiced by the young generation. Like Fitzgerald himself, Amory Blaine is finally able to escape from the unpleasant system by finding himself.

  After his first success as a writer, Fitzgerald married Zelda in April 1920 in New York. Zelda would later play an important role in Fitzgerald life. As people noticed she concerned a lot about social prominence rather than literary

  14 distinction of her husband. However the newly married couple soon became a new attraction in New York. Almost every evening they attended parties from one place to another. Little did Fitzgerald realise that actually his wife brought no tranquillity to his life and literary career. He even enjoyed living extravagantly with his wife. This expensive life cost Fitzgerald a serious financial problem. To cover the expenses Fitzgerald wrote stories with little or no literary quality. His stories were collected in Flappers and Philosopher published in 1920. To indulge his expensive life style, Fitzgerald had begun borrowing money from Harold Ober and Scribner's. This was the beginning of his lifetime practice of borrowing money.

  On March 3, 1922, Fitzgerald completed The Beautiful and Damned and was soon published. This book was a serious one and directly reflected the conflicts between Fitzgerald and Zelda. The main characters of the book, Anthony and Gloria represented how Fitzgerald felt about the attitudes of his wife. Anthony and Gloria were characterised as people who neither could resist the charming and ugly world they were surrounded by nor be strong enough to escape from it. It was just like the way Fitzgerald and Zelda led their lives. As Fitzgerald felt, actually Anthony and Gloria were pitiful and silly instead of beautiful and damned people. Through the novel Fitzgerald could make the public feel what he felt about his life with his wife.

  The sales of the book was fairly good but it was not financially good enough since Fitzgerald had been deeply indebted to Ober and Scribner's.

  Writing as a way of life started depressing Fitzgerald. Few months after the

  15 publication of the second novel, Fitzgerald published the second collection of stories called Tales of The Jazz Age. However he still had his financial problems. Fitzgerald and Zelda could not stop living extravagantly. They did not care about keeping the money well. What they enjoyed to have was the mobility and grace which was in fact available only to the rich. But it seemed that it was necessary for them to keep up their appearances. In order to earn more money Fitzgerald wrote

  The Vegetable. When it was performed in 1923, it turned out to be a big flop.

  With the illusion of reducing expenses and still having the fashionable life, Fitzgerald decided to move his family to France. He moved there in May 1924.

  They settled at St Raphael on Rivera. They left Great Neck after being told that everything was very cheap in Europe.

  The Great Gatsby was published in April 1925 and it was the big leap

  forward for Fitzgerald's literary achievement. Many critics praised the book as the best work of him. In this book Fitzgerald expounded his deepest feeling from what he had experienced in life. This time he created a hero living without money and acquiring it later. Jay Gatsby, the hero of the book enters the army in The South and meets a charming girl over there. While Gatsby is away, Daisy, the girl he is in love with, married a rich man. Having earned enough money, Gatsby tries to recapture Daisy's love, but it only causes him to die in futile.

  Although the book was highly praised, Fitzgerald was disappointed with the sale of it. He escaped it with thousand parties and he did not write at all. He hated his pathetic life and drank heavily. Many times he quarrelled with Zelda. In a party

  16 held by a friend, Zelda started showing her madness. Being tired and disillusioned, Fitzgerald had decided to come back to America at the end of 1925.

  In 1928 and 1928 Fitzgerald and Zelda revisited Paris to spend the summers. This time Zelda wanted to take a ballet course. During this period Fitzgerald had begun writing his fourth novel. He basically wrote it based on his life experience. At the end of 1933 Fitzgerald was finally able to complete Tender Is the Night which reflected his life in many ways. The sales of the book was not really satisfying since the book itself was about the chic people living luxuriously on the Rievera while in reality most people were suffering from the enormous economic depression since 1929. Tender Is the Night was published in 1934. In 1936 Fitzgerald wrote The

  

Crack Up describing his own down fall.. Despite his difficulties in life, Fitzgerald

  tried to write his fifth novel, The Last Tycoon. His illness prevented him from finishing the book.

  In November 1940 Fitzgerald had a heart attack and had to rest. While lying in bed he worked hard to write the book. He could write as far as the first part, of chapter VI, before the second and fatal heart attack took his life, on December 21, 1940. The artist had prematurely died and left behind his unfinished book. He was buried in the Rockville Union Cemetery in Marylan on December 27, 1940 ( Mizener : 1972 ). the most ambitious novel Fitzgerald ever wrote. The novel is divided into three parts consisting of sixty one chapters in total. The novel used in the analysis is published by Wordsworth Editions Limited in 1994.

  Tender Is the Night is the story about the life of Richard Diver, a young

  psychiatrist from America who marries his mental patient, Nicole Warren. In the beginning of the story, Dick Diver is described as a clever scholar who gets a scholarship to study in Swiss. While working in a hospital during his study, Dick meets Nicole Warren who suffers from a schizophrenia, a mental disorder illness, because of an incestuous attack from his father when she was a teenager. Nicole is from a very wealthy family and Dick is just from a simple family. Out of his pity and attracted by Nicole’s wealth, finally Dick marries Nicole. Being charmed with the new rich world, Dick is busy with his new world and social activities, Dick gradually ignore his career as a psychiatrist. After being recovered from her illness, Nicole finally leaves Dick and chooses another man. Being too late to realise his downfall, Dick is forced to go back to America with his ruined life.

  What attracts the writer of the study to analyse the novel is the great similarities between the story of the novel and the life of the author. Some elements the story resemble Fitzgerald life and experience. However close the

  18 resemblance is, Fitzgerald still uses his creative imagination in expounding his life and experiences. Knowing these facts, the writer of the study tries to find out the elements of the novel reflecting Fitzgerald life and what Fitzgerald wants to yield out by writing the novel.

  The approach applied in the study is the biographical approach. The writer believes that the approach chosen will lead him best to investigate every possible relation between an author and his works. Fitzgerald himself is famous for his semi-autobiographical works because he frequently uses his life and experiences as the sources of his writings.

  In Reading and Writing About Literature, Mary Rorhrberger states that the biographical approach is an approach starting with the conviction that a literary work shares the ideas and the personality of the author either directly or indirectly. As the product of an author, a literary work reflects the personality and the life of its author. Consequently, in understanding a literary work we can relate it with the biographical information of the author. The biography of an author is very significant to the analysis of his works as it will provide us sufficient facts (1971:8).

  Rorhberger further describes that when we apply a biographical approach we are not allowed to make any moral judgement toward any literary work we study.

  We should avoid this practise as it will only lead us to the shallow criticism to a piece of literary criticism. What is far better to do is trying to find out what an author wants to speak out through his writings. This is what the writer is going to do in studying Tender Is the Night in this study.

  19 As Rorhrberger suggests, the writer uses the primary sources and the secondary sources in doing his study. Using both sources means that the writer will use either his own findings from his careful reading and observations and the observations of the critics to corroborate the analysis (1971:99).

  The first step of conducting the study is to observe the elements of the novel such as characters, setting, and theme. He limits the analysis to those elements only as he wants to prove his hypothesis that those elements are obviously reflecting Fitzgerald's life and experiences.

  The main source of the study is Fitzgerald's fourth novel Tender Is the

  

Night. The writer of the study reads the novel carefully and observes the elements

  of the story thoroughly. After reading the novel carefully, the writer gathers the data from the significant elements relevant to the topic of his study. The same method is applied in reading Fitzgerald's biography. By conducting a library research the writer finds many important information about Fitzgerald's biography and the criticism of Fitzgerald works, especially Tender In the Night. The writer obtains the most complete biographical information of Fitzgerald from Some Sort of

  Epic Grandeur The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald written by Mathew J. Bruccoli.

  To enlarge the basic resources of his analysis, the writer uses the criticisms of Tender Is the Night. He mainly uses Mizener's F. Scott Fitzgerald A collection

  

of Critical Essay and Perosa's The Art of F. Scott Fitzgerald. These secondary

  20 sources are important so as to supplement the writer's own finding and observations.

  The comparison between the elements of the novel and the life of Fitzgerald and his experiences will finally give the thorough answers toward the discussion and the comparison will conclude the study. describe necessary steps that lead him to a thorough analysis. He will describe theoretical background of his analysis as to validate his study with sufficient sources such as the biography of Fitzgerald written by Andrew Mizener, the biography approach formulated by Welleck and Warren, and Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

A. The elements of the story which reflect Fitzgerald’s life

  In writing Tender is The Night, the writer of this study has been confirmed by facts found in the story and in Fitzgerald’s biography written by Arthur Mizener that there are some elements in the book revealing Fitzgerald’s life either directly expressed or recreated in an imaginative figure. The writer in here will only reveal the elements of the novel which have significant similarities with Fitzgerald’s life as to focus his analysis. Among many elements of the story, setting, characters, and theme are found to be the ones strongly reflecting Fitzgerald’s life recreated in Tender is The Night. Before going further to the analysis of the setting, characters, and theme, the writer of this thesis likes to emphasize that Fitzgerald uses flash back method in unfolding the story of the novel.

  Tender Is the Night is divided into three parts. The first part of the book has twenty

  star from America who spends her holiday with her mother in French Riviera, we are led and guided to see the world of wealthy American people who spend their lives in a top class place in the area. From Rosemary’s observation, the readers are introduced with Richard Divers or called Dick Divers who creates his own world as a rich family.

  22 The second part of the book has twenty two chapters. This part of the novel reveals the back ground of Dick Diver from his college time in America. He receives a scholarship to study in Swiss. He is in love with Nicole Warrens, his mental patient suffering from schizophrenia. This part of the novel starts in the year of 1917 with the arrival of Dick Divers in Zurich for his study. This book is mostly dedicated to Dick Divers . On the other hand, we also find the past of Nicole Warren, Dick’s future wife who suffers from a mental disorder because of an incestuous attack from her father. In short, the second part of this book tells us the past of Dick Divers and his wife.

  The third part of the book is the last part of the story which is telling us the continuity of the first part of Tender Is the Night. It tells us how finally Dick’s marriage cracked down and his carrier is deteriorated.

  A.1. Setting