Examples Of Winter Dreams In The Great Gatsby

2009 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The portrayal of women in american literature

Is a Winter Dream a reality or just an illusion? Winter Dreams was published in December 1922. F. Scott Fitzgerald is most known for his novel The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald likes the common theme of failure trying to accomplish the American Dream, and false corrupt forms in which the dream really exists. His secondary themes include wealth, power, beauty, and economic class. Fitzgerald likes to write about love, corruption and, fantasy during the Jazz age. Winter Dreams is about a middle-class boy falling in love with a wealthy girl and doing whatever he can to obtain her. Dexter Green chases his dream of wealth and love for one woman only for it to come crashing down. F. Scott Fitzgerald shows the characterization of hope through Dexter’s Green …show more content…

“She reveals something of her character and the power she will have over Dexter when she shows her smile” (Lahood, “Judy”). Judy was manipulating not only Dexter to convince him that she cared, but every new male that had come to town. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me. Last night I thought I was in love with a man and to-night I think I’m in love with you” (Fitzgerald). Dexter fell in love with Jud the second he saw her on the golf course when they were children; ever since that moment Dexter has wanted to be the man she would marry. Little did Dexter know that Judy was going to play him like she has played every other man in town, dinner, dates, and get booted to the curb when she got bored. Judy preyed on Dexter’s so-called love throughout his childhood, adulthood, and his engagement with Irene. Dexter and Judy’s relationship was based off Dexter’s dream to have the prettiest girl even if she couldn’t be …show more content…

“In her wealth, social status and beauty, she symbolizes the golden-girl embodiment of the American Dream” (Lahood, “Judy”). Judy has Dexter wrapped around his finger to the point where his emotions revolved around her presence. Judy made Dexter feel excited, energetic, and longing for his American Dream. “She had treated him with interest, with encouragement, with malice, with indifference, with contempt” (Fitzgerald). Judy not only was Dexter’s final wish for his American Dream, she manipulated him into thinking she was the ultimate prize that could never be won. Judy is a key part to this story in the fact that she completed Dexter’s American

Show More
Related

  • How Did F Scott Fitzgerald Use Paradoxes In Winter Dreams

    976 Words  | 2 Pages

    When Dexter embodies all of his dreams in the beautiful Judy Jones, her fickle attitude and the inevitability

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Winter Dreams And Jay Gatsby

    897 Words  | 2 Pages

    F. Scott Fitzgerald is known as a great author for his several works that do a great job at capturing the 1920s and allowing readers to get a look inside what the 20s would actually be like. The 1920s was a booming time period, people were getting richer and businesses were growing larger and larger with each year. This was a decade during the prohibition and even so, alcohol and partying was everywhere. Fitzgerald provides a very interesting look into the 1920s through both his short story, “Winter Dreams,” and in his novel The Great Gatsby. The main character in “Winter Dreams,” Dexter Green, is an upper middle class man who falls in love with an old money girl and spends his life

    Read More

  • Comparison of the American Dream in The Great Gatsby and “Winter Dreams”

    952 Words  | 2 Pages

    The similarities between Jay and Dexter are quite apparent when reading each story. They both come from the Midwest and although Dexter’s family has some money, both are similar in the fact that they did not start out as wealthy, upper class men from rich families. Their hard work and determination to make their own wealth and acquire the luxuries and social status that come with it are completely by their own doing. Both men achieve their goals of the American dream at a relatively young age and are able to be a part of the high society they once observed from a distance. Their desire to amass wealth and the perks associated with it come with an ulterior motive, to win back the girls they desire that will only be with them if they have the wealth and status to bring to the table.

    Read More

  • Pursuit of the American Dream in Great Gatsby and Death of a Salesman

    1321 Words  | 3 Pages

    People from all around the world have dreamed of coming to America and building a successful life for themselves. The "American Dream" is the idea that, through hard work and perseverance, the sky is the limit in terms of financial success and a reliable future. While everyone has a different interpretation of the "American Dream," some people use it as an excuse to justify their own greed and selfish desires. Two respected works of modern American literature, The Great Gatsby and Death of a Salesman, give us insight into how the individual interpretation and pursuit of the "American Dream" can produce tragic results.

    Read More

  • Winter Dreams Research Paper

    548 Words  | 2 Pages

    Dexter and Judy could have had a fairytale ending, but in the end both of their lives were lonely and depressing. Judy wanted Dexter, but not to fall in love with her. She wanted him because she knew she could have him and wanted to prove to herself that her beauty could get a man to do anything. She convinced a man to break off an engagement with a girl he could have been happy with. She didn’t even stick around Dexter long enough for him to even propose.

    Read More

  • The American Dream In F. Scott Fitzgerald's Winter Dreams

    1955 Words  | 4 Pages

    The concept of the American dream has been related to everything from religious freedom to a nice home in the suburbs. It has inspired both deep satisfaction and disillusioned fury. The phrase elicits for most Americans a country where good things can happen. However, for many Americans, the dream is simply unattainable. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Winter Dreams,” Dexter Green, a hardworking young man born into the middle class, becomes wrapped up in his pursuit to obtain wealth and status in his life. These thoughts and ideas represent Dexter’s fixation on his “winter dreams,” or, the idea of what the American Dream means to him: gaining enough wealth to eventually move up in social class and become somebody, someday. As Dexter attempts to work himself up the social ladder, he falls in love with Judy Jones, a shallow and selfish, rich woman. But to Dexter, Judy represents the very idea of the American Dream-- obtaining wealth and status. Dexter’s pursuit of Judy and essentially the American Dream becomes an obsession. In the end, Dexter is forced to accept the realization that his “winter dreams” are actually just empty wishes. By characterizing Judy as a superficial, materialistic woman, Fitzgerald criticizes the destructive nature of the American Dream.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Winter Dreams And The Great Gatsby

    432 Words  | 1 Pages

    Two of Fitzgerald’s works, Winter Dreams and The Great Gatsby, have very similar plots. Both features poor young men trying reach wealth. Both protagonist have a women of their dreams in mind. And both men are devastated in the end. However there are some things that make the stories differ. Wether it is in a shape of a narrator or the way the story is written, they do have differences.

    Read More

  • Summary Of The Story 'Winter Dreams'

    301 Words  | 1 Pages

    In ‘Winter Dreams’, the ending is unexpected. Throughout the story, we are under the impression that this is the story of Dexter Green's love for Judy Jones. But at the end of the story, once Dexter finds out that Judy has lost her charms and settled into a bad marriage, we begin to wonder if this story is about something else entirely. Dexter does not weep for Judy. He weeps for himself, for the young man he once was and for the illusions he once held.

    Read More

  • Examples Of A Dream Deferred In The Great Gatsby

    1111 Words  | 3 Pages

    No two people are going to share the exact same goals, and while many people’s dreams run along the same pathways towards security, money, love, and companionship, the route by which to get there and the destination should be left entirely to the dreamer. By creating an institution such as the American Dream, goals become oversimplified. The American dream boils happiness down into two or three facets, which everyone seems to try desperately to conform to, but people cannot be told what to like. As conformists, though, everyone will attempt to seem perfectly happy with a lot they never chose as they live a dream they never wanted. Nothing showcases this more clearly than the rampant unhappiness of the characters in The Great Gatsby. None of the people the world would consider ‘successful’ end the novel happy; instead they are left either emotionally hollow or entirely dead. Their failure at achieving real and true happiness is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s way of criticizing the relentless pursuit of a phony American

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby - Dreams of Happiness

    1685 Words  | 4 Pages

    Each character in the novel has their own interpretation of the ‘American Dream – the pursuit of happiness’ as they all lack happiness due to the careless nature of American society during the Jazz Age. The American Dreams seems almost non-existent to those whom haven’t already achieved it.

    Read More

  • Judy Jones Character Analysis

    632 Words  | 2 Pages

    As a little girl, she uses her smile to try and get what she desires: “the smile again- blatantly artificial- convincing” and “ he was treated to that absurd smile, that preposterous smile--the memory of which at least a dozen men were to carry into middle age.” As Jones proceeds into adulthood, she perfects her skills, particularly towards men. The night that Jones and Green’s romantic relationship began, Jones said to Green, "I don't know what's the matter with me. Last night I thought I was in love with a man and to-night I think I'm in love with you." Green first sees this as a romantic and beautiful phrase, but then Jones disappears with another man and lies about it to him. Also, in Green’s thoughts of Jones and their romantic engagements, the reader can discover the twisted tactics for capturing men. For example, “ Judy made these forays upon the helpless and defeated without malice, indeed half unconscious that there was anything mischievous in what she did,“ along with “she had beckoned him and yawned at him and beckoned him again.”

    Read More

  • Comparing The Wolf Of Wall Street And The Great Gatsby

    1564 Words  | 4 Pages

    For some, simply having infinite wealth and popularity is enough for them to be happy. For others, they need something that money can’t buy. Two books that express these qualities are: The Wolf of Wall Street by Jordan Belfort and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Both of these books describe the life of a wealthy man but each of them have different ideas of the American dream. Examples from these books will show how the American dream differs from person to person.

    Read More

  • The Impossible American Dream in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

    1258 Words  | 3 Pages

    The American Dream is not something easily achieved, and according to Fitzgerald it is literally unattainable. There is always some obstacle or barrier in the way of success. Tom Buchanan in The Great Gatsby is not a very satisfied man; he seems to have a sense of ennui when it comes to his marriage and his life. So he lives the life he really wants part time with his mistress, Myrtle Wilson. However, this semi-fulfillment of his dreams is stopped, and what stops it is the fact that Myrtle is married, and her husband, George, has “discovered that Myrtle [has] some sort of life apart from him in another world” (The Great Gatsby 130). Tom is reaching for his own idea of success with Myrtle, but he cannot reach it due to her being married. What keeps one from attaining their dreams is not necessarily something as physical as a marriage; it can be someone’s attitude, like that of Judy Jones in Fitzgerald’s “Winter Dreams”. The young protagonist in this story, Dexter Green, is in love with the flighty flirt Judy Jones. His dream is to be with her; unfortunately, “She [is] entertained only by the gratification of her own ...

    Read More

  • Character Analysis Of Dexter Green

    928 Words  | 2 Pages

    Dexter had to keep himself from forgetting he cannot have Judy Jones. In the end of the story Dexter has come to a conclusion he could not have Judy, “When autumn had come and gone again, it occurred to him that he could not have Judy Jones. He had to beat this into his mind, but he convinced himself at last. He lay awake at night for a while and argued it over. He told himself the trouble and the pain she had caused him, he enumerated her glaring deficiencies as a wife”(p 974). While Dexter cared for Judy he felt that he need to forget her since he knew he could never really have her full attention. While he knew he could never have her he knew he could never have her he meet her again and falls for her all over again one last time and this time it was her that was convincing him to date once again. "I'm more beautiful than anybody else," she said brokenly, "why can't I be happy?" Her moist eyes tore at his stability--her mouth turned slowly downward with an exquisite sadness: "I'd like to marry you if you'll have me, Dexter. I suppose you think I'm not worth having, but I'll be so beautiful for you, Dexter"(p 977). While Dexter was not too sure how to feel he didn't know how to react to this, with Judy he

    Read More

  • F. Scott Fitzgerald's Winter Dreams

    519 Words  | 2 Pages

    If you read through the story you will see that he explains he quit because of her behavior the first time they met, he didn’t really want to surround himself around her. Dexter rather of quit being a caddy just so he could avoid her. And all the times he ran into her it was never on purpose. It was never his intention to run into her, it was always on accidents, for example, when he took the guest pass to play golf and she ended up being there or the time he went swimming in the lake and she came up and splashed him with water simply because, she wanted him to drive her boat so she could ride her surfboard on the back. Dexter does not really realize how his feelings have changed until the end of the story when the man is talking to him about Judy and how she does not look the way she used to after she got married and had children. At the end of the story he says "Long ago," he said, "long ago, there was something in me, but now that thing is gone. Now that thing is gone, that thing is gone. I cannot cry. I cannot care. That thing will come back no more." neatherless, the ending of the short story just goes to prove he does not care for Judy, that he has not felt something for her for

    Read More

More about Examples Of Winter Dreams In The Great Gatsby

Open Document