Self-Construction and Deconstruction through Othering in F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night.
Self-Construction and Deconstruction through Othering in F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night.

Summary/Abstract: This article analyzes identity construction strategies in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel 'Tender Is The Night', in an attempt to show that the two main characters (Dick Diver and Nicole Diver) use a process of othering in order to achieve a 'complete self'. Whereas Diver sees completeness as a flawed self and achieves it through eroticizing what is abjected: his union with Nicole and the symbolic adoption of her broken psyche, Nicole achieves a valid self through a vampire-like energy transfer from Diver. The latter turns from the eroticized other into the abjected other, in Nicole's process of self construction.

• Details
• Contents