Already with you! the night is tender,* * * * * * * * *But here there is no light, save what comes from heaven with the breezes blown through the green darknesses and winding mossy paths.-John Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale" A quiet but unsettling darkness permeates the novel, Tender is the Night, the story of Dick Diver, a promising young psychologist who falls from fame while living with his wife Nicole Warren, a rich and beautiful schizophrenic patient.The authorThe analysis of the novel would be incomplete if it is not seen alongside the biography of the author, because Tender is the Night, like most of Fitzgerald's works, is as much autobiographical than psychological. Reading through the novel, one would find many parallels between the life of the author, F. Scott Fitzgerald and the lives of the characters, notably that of the Diver couple.Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896 in St Paul, Minnesota, and was sent to local Catholic boarding schools. At Princeton University, instead of focusing on formal studies, he chose to receive his education from writers and critics. In 1917 he was commissioned into the army and, during his training camps, wrote the novel This Side of Paradise (1920). While at a camp in Alabama, he fell in love with 18-year-old Zelda Sayre, who later became an integral figure in Fitzgerald's fiction, which paid for his and Zelda's extravagant lifestyle. In 1924, the Fitzgeralds left their Long Island home for Paris, where they met Gerald and Sarah Murphy, who took them to the French Riviera. Here Fitzgerald completed The Great Gatsby (1925). Although the novel is generic...... middle of paper ...... Tommy comes to take Nicole, Dick abandons her without a fight. Nicole wins. Dick no longer has his patient, no longer has his wife. He leaves the Riviera and begins a new life in America, no longer the Dick Diver he once was. References: Fitzgerald, F. Scott. Tender is the Night. New York: Sounds of Charles Scribner, 1951. Hjelle, Larry A. and Daniel J. Ziegler. Personality Theories, Third Edition. Singapore: McGraw Hill, Inc., 1992 John, Oliver P. and Lawrence A. Perrin. Personality Theory and Research, Eighth Edition. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2001. Poston, Carol H. Cliff Notes on Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night. United States: Cliff Notes, Inc., 1974. Ryckman, Richard M. Theories of Personality, Third Edition. California: Wadsworth Inc.., 1985.