Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: F. SCott Fitzgerald

  • Katherine Anne Porter and the 1918 influenza epidemic

    Cristóbal S. Berry-CabánFort Bragg, North Carolina, United States In Pale Horse, Pale Rider, Katherine Anne Porter weaves the horrors of the Great War, the 1918 influenza pandemic, and the near-death experience of a young woman in love with a doomed American soldier into a memorable novella.1 Porter was born on May 15, 1890, in the…

  • The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg and the diagnostic gaze as moral authority in The Great Gatsby

    Rachel BrackenHouston, Texas, United States The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic—their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a non-existent nose. Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his…

  • F. Scott Fitzgerald and mental illness in Tender is the Night

    Jessica FrostBirmingham, United Kingdom In the 1930’s classic Tender is the Night,  F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays Nicole Diver as “a schizoid – a permanent eccentric.”1 However, whether the diagnosis is clinically accurate is a question that arises as the novel explores issues of mental illness and the doctor-patient relationship. The evolution of psychiatry and the…