Following Fitzgerald's death in 1940, Tender Is the Night's critical reputation has steadily grown.[59] Later critics have described it as "an exquisitely crafted piece of fiction" and "one of the greatest American novels".[12][59] It is now widely regarded as among Fitzgerald's most accomplished works, with some agreeing with the author's assessment that it surpasses The Great Gatsby.[60]
Several critics have interpreted the novel to be a feminist work and posited that the patriarchal attitudes of the reactionary 1930s underlay the critical dismissal.[61] They have noted the parallels between Dick Diver and Jay Gatsby, with many regarding the novel and particularly Diver's character, as Fitzgerald's most emotionally and psychologically complex work.[62]
Christian Messenger argues that Fitzgerald's book hinges on the sustaining sentimental fragments: "On an aesthetic level, Fitzgerald's working through of sentiment's broken premises and rhetoric in Tender heralds a triumph of modernism in his attempt to sustain his sentimental fragments and allegiances in new forms."[63] He calls it "F. Scott Fitzgerald's richest novel, replete with vivid characters, gorgeous prose, and shocking scenes," and calls attention to Slavoj Žižek's use of the book to illustrate the nonlinear nature of experience.[64]
