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Chanin Storm

Dr. Carlos Dews

ENGL 441: The Novel in America Since 1914

11 May 2010

The Strength of Fitzgerald’s Women

Even without looking to outside sources the reader of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender Is The

Night can see the strength given to the women in the story. Three female characters in particular

are shown to gain more strength while the one constant figure in which they all interact

disintegrates into oblivion. This seems rather strange based on the fact that women in the 1920’s

often were not considered as prominent as men, but the characters of Baby Warren, Nicole

Warren/Diver/Barban, and Rosemary Hoyt are all strong and are less in need of a man than any

other female or male characters within the story.

In fact in some way, each of these feminine characters is more male than their male

counterparts. This maleness is the strength that they use to keep themselves safe and prosperous.

Two of the characters refuse to need males in their life as anything more than an accessory. The

other only needs a male in her life to help her, it would seem, maintain her identity, but in every

other way she is more independent than most. Baby Warren becomes the male factor in the

Warren family and in the protection of her sister Nicole. Baby is a stable part of the story before

Nicole and Dick are married, during their marriage, and as they are divorced. She it the static

character that does not grow at all but is a presence for other characters in the book. Nicole is

the wife of Dick, but that is only part of her personality, she is a woman of her own fractured

mind, but is not as reliant on Dick as she at first seems. Then there is the young starlet,
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Rosemary Hoyt, who is on her own, and very happy being unencumbered with a man and loves

her own independence.

Through these three women, Fitzgerald, it would seem, shows a part of his life. He uses

many of the characters in the book to represent his current state in life. The novel allows the

reader to understand that Fitzgerald is disintegrating into oblivion, because of his real wife’s

mental incapacity and his inability to care for her. The novel, therefore, needs the strong women

to alleviate the feelings of frustration and the inability to fix his real life and to pretend that his

wife, Zelda is capable of being like these women. Even Nicole, who has been sexually abused

by the father as a teenager, ends up being just as strong as Rosemary and Baby, and maybe even

stronger. These women show the strength that Fitzgerald may unconsciously want from his own

wife, and through them the reader learns that women in Fitzgerald’s worlds tend to be the strong

characters, while the men are weak.

The first and least discussed strong female character is Baby Warren. In Tiffany Joseph’s

article, "Non-Combatant's Shell-Shock": Trauma and Gender in F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is

the Night” the comment is made that “power and communication rarely exist for women in” this

work. While this is not quite true, she does acknowledge that Baby Warren is the exception. For

the first part, one would need to acknowledge that Baby’s real name is Beth and she is the older

sister of Nicole, but for some reason the nickname of Baby has stuck to her. This nickname is

misleading because Baby Warren does not have a soft exterior, but a type of masculine and

financial power that all seem to sense (Toles 424). She is no nonsense and goes for what she

wants, and does not take no for an answer.

This power is even more obvious when she tries to buy, and eventually does buy, Dick

Diver to care for her sister, Nicole (Fitzgerald 160). This protection is also a way to make it so
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that she, Baby, does not have to take responsibility for the care of her sister. This is a male

gesture in that the caring for a child is the mother’s or woman’s work. She states, “I don’t mind

the responsibility…but I’m in the air” (Fitzgerald 159). This understanding of an unwanted

burden is revisited when Franz entices Dick to purchase a clinic with him. Of course, Dick does

not have the money, but Baby and Nicole do (Nowlin 67). When Baby hears of the possible

purchase her first thought is “that if Nicole lived beside a clinic” Baby would have even less to

worry about (Fitzgerald 182). Through the use of money, Baby relinquishes all responsibility of

Nicole to Dick and really to the clinic, and knows that her sister is safe. She has struck deals and

in a sense is proven herself to be “economically” a male rather than a female (Fitzgerald 52).

The term “economically a boy” is also used to describe the starlet, Rosemary Hoyt. She

is another character that is stronger than most women in the story. While Tiffany Joseph’s

article says that she does not have much communication or power, this is not completely true.

Even though Rosemary is young she is her own person and continues to live in that fashion

(DiBattista 33). This independence begins with Elsie Speers, Rosemary’s mother, who has

groomed her daughter to need no one but her self economically. In fact Speers mentions that

Rosemary was “brought up to work – not necessarily to marry” (Fitzgerald 52). Speers goes

further by telling her daughter to have a liaison with Mr. Diver, by saying to “go ahead and put

whatever happens down to experience” (Fitzgerald 52). This is the approval that Rosemary

needs to go after Dick (Nowlin 66).

Even at that young age, Rosemary knows that she and Dick of similar when she states

“we’re such actors – you and I” (Fitzgerald 113) meaning that they play for those around them

(Hall 620). The only difference is that Rosemary accepts it while Dick denies it. Toward the end

of Book 2, Rosemary meets up with Dick again, except for this time she is not an innocent child
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but an experienced adult. The independence of her own life is thrown at Dick when she asks

“But what have you got for me?” (Fitzgerald 221). In this instance, rosemary is no longer the

naïve young woman trying to seduce her first lover, but an experienced woman finally realizing

that first love was not as great as she remembered (Cokal; DiBattista 35; Nowlin 66; Toles 436).

This rendezvous reinforces the initial introduction of Rosemary; she is “economically a boy” and

does not need anyone for any length of time (Fitzgerald 52).

The final female of strength is Nicole. For the first book, Rosemary and therefore the

reader views Nicole initially as “hard and lovely and pitiful” (Fitzgerald 20). In Book 2, the

reader comes to know that Baby sees Nicole as a responsibility, and even Dick views her as a

responsibility and a type of patient to whom he is married (Nowlin 67). However, it is Tommy

Barban, in Book 3, that views Nicole as a woman, and brings the strength to her. After her

liaison with Tommy many readers realize that she is finally breaking away from Dick, and

becoming her own person. She even realizes this while speaking with Tommy on the phone.

Because of this realization she begins to rethink her responses and actions as independent from

Dick (Fitzgerald 298).

However, the biggest break through for Nicole is when she tells Dick, “You’re a coward!

You’ve made a failure of your life, and you want to blame it on me” (Fitzgerald 300). Not only

is Nicole standing up for herself, but she is forcing him to take responsibility for his own actions.

This act shows the reader that many characters have created the victim mentality within Nicole,

but only Tommy has trusted her and treated her as normal and allowed her strength to flow

(DiBattista 37; Hall 618; Nowlin 73). Some readers and critics believe that this is only a

moment of lucidity others believe it is another rash act that Nicole undertakes as part of her
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mental illness, and that Tommy feeds on it rather than helps it (DiBattista 38). Whichever way

the story is interpreted, one can not deny her new found independence.

No matter what others say, it is obvious to most readers that Nicole is just as strong and

independent as Rosemary and Baby. Each accentuates their independence in their own ways.

Baby travels all over Europe in hopes of finding happiness in her loneliness. Rosemary refuses

to find a stable and long lasting relationship and relies on liaisons for happiness in which she is

often disappointed. Then there is Nicole, who unhappy in one situation changed herself and her

life to find happiness in another. Each has their flaws but they are all strong and all independent,

economically and emotionally. They have no need for anyone outside of themselves. However,

only Nicole seems truly happy with her decisions in life, while Baby and Rosemary show only

part of themselves and deny the need for more than they have. Meaning that in the long run,

Nicole is more sane and honest with herself, and therefore stronger than even the other two

women within the story.

Through the use of this reversal of characters, the strength of the women can not be

denied. However, the use of the mentally ill Nicole, to be one of the strongest female characters,

is a wish that Fitzgerald had for his own wife. Zelda can be found in the character of Rosemary,

in which she loved being the center of attention. She can be found in Baby as the one flitting

around Europe, and of course in Nicole in the mentally ill wife. Yet maybe unconsciously

Fitzgerald knew Zelda was more like Nicole, but denied it to himself, and thereby it only came

through in his work (Johnson). It is impossible to know, but it is possible for the reader of

Tender is the Night to not only see Fitzgerald the male characters, but the strength and

determination of his wife within the female characters of strength.

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Works Cited

Cokal, Susann. "Caught in the Wrong Story: Psychoanalysis and Narrative Structure in Tender is

the Night." Texas Studies in Literature and Language (2005): 75. Web. 16 February 2010.

DiBattista, Maria. "The Aesthetic of Forbearance: Fitzgerald's "Tender is the Night"." NOVEL:

A Forum on Fiction 11.1 (1977): 26-39. Web. 16 February 2010.

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. Tender is the Night. New York: Scribner Classic, 1982. Print.

Hall, William F. "Dialogue and Theme in Tender is the Night." Modern Language Notes 76.7

(1961): 616-22. Web. 16 February 2010.

Johnson, Sarah. "Fitzgerald, F. Scott (Francis Scott), 1896-1940."Web. 16 February 2010.

Joseph, Tiffany. ""Non-Combatant's Shell-Shock": Trauma and Gender in F. Scott Fitzgerald's

Tender is the Night." NWSA Journal 15.3 (2004): 64-81. Web. 16 February 2010.

Nowlin, Michael. "'the World's Rarest Work': Modernism and Masculinity in Fitzgerald's Tender

is the Night." College Literature 25.2 (1998): 58. Web. 16 February 2010.

Toles, George. "The Metaphysics of Style in Tender is the Night." American Literature 62.3

(1990): 423-44. Web. 16 February 2010.