Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald and psychoanalysis: The construction of Tender Is the Night (1934)

Abstract

This article analyzes the biographical and contextual elements which enabled Fitzgerald to incorporate the psychiatry of the time into Tender Is the Night (1934). The content of the novel is linked to Zelda Fitzgerald’s mental illness and her admission to a Swiss psychiatric clinic in 1930. It also identifies the parallels between the doctors who treated the couple and those that appear in the novel, examining the elements used to construct fictional characters inspired by major figures in psychiatry during this period, including Oscar Forel, Eugen Bleuler and Carl Gustav Jung. Lastly, it evaluates the weight and significance of the discourse and the psychiatric and psychoanalytic concepts utilized by Fitzgerald in the novel.