Save Me the Waltz & Tender Is the Night

The two novels provide the portrayal of the couple's failing marriage. In tender is night Scott, starts by introducing a two youngster who encroaches into the marriage of a couple the Divers, Rosemary Hoyt, is a very beautiful 18-year-old American actress, she arrives with her mother at the Gausse's hotel on the French Riviera for a vacation. She manages to meet Dick Diver, whom according to her is charming and handsome; Dick had a wife, Nicole Diver. Later on, Rosemary falls in love with Dick and enters into the world of the couple "the Divers," the couple leads a life that is full of people and partying.

Through the Divers, she meets other people on the Riviera; she also enjoys herself on the beaches and interacts with the likes of McKiscos, Abe North, and Tommy Barban. After sometime, Rosemary boldly confesses her feelings to Dick, who takes the opportunity to begin reciprocating them. It goes the extent where, Rosemary accompanies the Divers to on their way to Paris, to dark side of events start when Abe North murder's a black man, Rosemary witnesses as Nicole goes in a nervous breakdown in the bathroom at the hotel.

In Save Me the Waltz, The protagonist of the novel is Alabama Beggs, she marries David Knight, an aspiring painter who abruptly gains fame for his work. They started life in Connecticut, before they departed to live in France. On being dissatisfied with their marriage, Alabama decides to throw herself into ballet; she doesn't succeed to get a chance she perseveres for three years after which she becomes the lead dancer in one of the opera companies. Alabama becomes ill due the exhaustive nature of her endeavors, in this novel Alabama's struggle is portrayed as she attempts to rise above the state of being just a back-seat driver in her life to the state she earns respect from her own accomplishments, she was able to establish herself independent of her husband.

This in reality is Zelda's lifestyle which was very different from Scott's. The novel Save Me the Waltz use a language which is filled with verbal flourishes. This novel is also deeply sensual, The sensuality arises as Alabama's awareness of her life surges within her, through the consciousness minds, the natural imagery are evident through which not only the emotions are aroused but also simple facts about life are expressed, the presence of the senses overwhelmingly helps to catch the attention. However, the novel ends on sad mood when the two couples return to Alabama's family in the South, on the death of her father.

Both authors tend to portray the life struggle in marriage, Scott uses Divers to portray the struggle in a marriage where the wife struggles and emancipates herself through another marriage, Zelda on the other hand presents a situation in which the wife liberates herself through her own skills and talent. The two novels reflects the marriage life of the authors who were husband and wife, the same themes are reflected in since both novels were written at the time that the authors were undergoing a psychological turmoil and a broken marriage. Betrayal is evident in both novels Knight begins an affair with an actress while Dick's life begins to deteriorate. But dick is also accused of seducing the minor a Fifteen year-old daughter to one of his patients, this causes Nicole to act weirdly, after being motivated by insane and jealousy, she runs their car off the road. Nicole remarries to Tommy.

The difference in the two novels arises where Nicole is portrayed more as a leech and Dick the victim in Tender is the night while in Save Me the Waltz Alabama is portrayed as a creative woman who manages to liberate herself after her husband's betrayed her. Therefore Scott's novel is biased towards the female protagonists while Zelda's novel presents a neutral point with an empowered female protagonist.

More so the Tender is the night narrative has given a lot of emphasis to the male protagonist's background where Dick's days as a young student almost capture the reader's attention. Dick is portrayed as an achiever from his child wood, for instance he attended Yale, then to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, where he earned his medical degree from Johns Hopkins. He is considered to have great promise in the book, after his studies he sought to practice as a psychiatrist. He gets the opportunity as a psychiatric in a clinic on the Zurichsee, it is here where he meets the 16-year-old Nicole, an heiress, and she suffers from schizophrenia that was caused by her father's molestation of her. On Nicole's improvement Dick decides start an affair, they later fall in love, marry, bought a house on the French Riviera, and had two children.

However, tender in the night presents a contrasting event where Dick uses Nicole's money, to invest in a clinic in Switzerland with a friend. Nicole started an affair with Tommy Barban after being infuriated with Dick's extra marital affairs, she divorces Dick and remarries Tommy, in his efforts to get away from the turmoil, Dick decided to leave for Berlin, he later on heads to America after learning that his father has died, in America, Dick continued to weaken and unravel. He became a heavy drinker, made a fool of himself, and even insulted his old buddies. He moved to small-town New York where he led a somewhat unsuccessful life. Therefore Scott showed a woman who liberates herself through betrayal while Zelda showed a woman who successfully manages her liberation through talent.