The story of “Winter Dreams” begins with a boy named Dexter Green, who was just a simple golf caddie at simply the age of fourteen. Throughout the story he becomes quite a success financially and was able to live a more prestigious lifestyle than he did in his earlier childhood. Through Fitzgerald’s short story, “Winter Dreams”, Dexter envisioned that economic success and seeking the possession of the unattainable would lead to happiness, but it would eventually lead to disarray and unhappiness.
One of Fitzgerald’s main themes to this story is how the changing of the seasons reflects the change of attitude we have on life and our personal mood. Dexter’s profession at the beginning of the story was a golf caddie. He spent the majority of his time underneath sun and surrounded by the shear beauty of nature. The happiest moments of Dexter’s life were when the game of golf was being played in the warm summer months. Dexter did not like the winter, and Fitzgerald represents this by saying, “At these times the country gave him a feeling of profound melancholy-it offended him that the links should lie in dreary, too, that on the tees where the gay colors fluttered in summer there were now only the desolate sand-boxes knee-deep in crusted ice (1830). The imagination of the snow melting into Lake Erminie gave Dexter a sense of ease and comfortableness that no other season would give him (Fitzgerald 1830).
In the harshest of times and the harshest seasons, Dexter would dream about the summer and what happiness it brought him. The summer was seen to him as an opportunity and a reminder of some of his most cherished moments. The winter dream became Dexter’s dream of summer months, and this often dictated his life decisions (Fitzger...
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...ng this unattainable reality. The happiest time of his life was the beginning when he spent his days on the golf course in the summer months as a caddy. Once started to have his winter dreams, he never looked back on the past until it was too late. When the story unravels at the end, Dexter unveils his true emotions about how his life never found purpose or fulfillment. He often believed that purpose and fulfillment would be found in material possessions and the people he was with. Throughout the short story, “Winter Dreams”, Dexter anticipated that financial stability and attaining the unattainable would lead to contentment, but it would eventually lead to the destruction of his life.
Works Cited
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. "Winter Dreams." McMichael, George L., and J. S. Leonard. Concise Anthology of American Literature. Boston: Longman, 2010. 1830-1845. Print.
Dreams prove as a powerful, motivating force, propelling an individual forward into real achievements in life. Conversely, dreams can transpire as blatantly artificial. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Winter Dreams” depicts the story of Dexter Green, a young man who dreams of achievements and works hard in a real, non-illusionary world to win them. His work in this plain, unromantic world brings him ever closer to the dream world he so desperately wants, while at the same time the dreams show themselves as decaying or empty. Unfortunately, this does not cure him of dreaming and does not push him to abandon his dreams in favor of a healthier attitude. When Dexter embodies all of his dreams in the beautiful Judy Jones, her fickle attitude and the inevitability of her aging destroys Dexter’s dream world and dries up the source of his achievements. The author, using paradoxes, shows Judy Jones differently through Dexter’s eyes, and reinforces the theme of illusion versus reality.
Scott Fitzgerald showcases the American Dream and how success can lead to fortune, but not all people meet all their goals and sometimes “the dream” is just an illusion that leads to misfortune. “Of course, Dexter’s renunciation of the world that he sees Judy dominating leads to success in business and his conquest of the adult world, since he forgoes pleasure to concentrate on getting ahead. But even at the beginning of that conquest, the victory turns sour” (Fahey 147). Dexter the moment he saw Judy he became determined to become wealthy and marry the prettiest girl around, only then he would have reached the American Dream. “Because his winter dreams happened to be concerned at first with musings on the rich” (Fitzgerald). Dexter was obsessed with become part of the rich, he dreamed of being a golf champion, he went to a more prestige college even if it meant more debt, he bought a laundry company, and he tried to win the girl. When Dexter was a caddy he desperately wanted to be successful and wealthy; he wanted to feel the happiness it would bring to his life. Years later when Dexter beat T.A. Hedrick in golf it brought him little joy to his everyday life. Dexter was forced to realize while living in the middle class that money could not buy his happiness no matter how hard he strived in business. By the end of the story Dexter realized the American Dream was just an illusion and could never fully be
F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the seasons as an intricate part of the setting in "Winter Dreams". The seasons are a reflection of the human life cycle. We are given Dexter's outlook of each season throughout the story. Dexter Green longs to live the American Dream of a prosperous life with a beautiful family like the rich people he encounters at the golf course.
Winter Dreams follows the life of Dexter Green as he pursues wealth and societal affluence in the hopes of winning the love and affection of Judy Jones, a spoiled socialite from a wealthy family who he first met when he was an adolescent while caddying at an exclusive golf club. As a result of this meeting and the embarrassment he felt in his role as a mere caddie; Dexter makes the irrational decision to quit his caddying job and begin his quest for upper-class social status. The author recapitulates this decision by the protagonist with the following statement; “It is not so simple as that either. As so frequently would be the case in the future, Dexter was unconsciously dictated to by his winter dreams.”
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.
The American Dream: the traditional social ideals of the US, such as equality, democracy, and material prosperity. Dexter represents this very well in the story Winter Dreams because it shows how he starts from the bottom and eventually works his way to the top. This is kind of an inspiring story because it starts off by having him be the best and most successful golf caddy that this golf course has ever had. All of the people that had him as a caddy were against him going other places and doing something with his life. Dexter made his own decisions and went where he wanted to go and he wanted more out of his like than being a golf caddy his whole life. In the text Winter Dreams written by Scott Fitzgerald Dexter is a worthy tribute to the American Dream he showed us that you can start from the bottom and have a very successful career ahead of you, Dexter showed us that if you work hard enough you can end up at the top, but you have to be willing to do the work, and everyone has an equal opportunity to be successful it is just the people who are willing to make sacrifices and want to be successful in life.
At the beginning of “Winter Dreams,” Dexter Greene, a fourteen year old boy, is a caddie at Sherry Island Golf Club,...
The plot of “Winter Dreams” is similar to a fairy tale. The story begins with a middle class young boy dreaming of fame and fortune. Dexter always will want more in life than he already does. He worked as a caddy and dreamed of one day golfing with these rich men. He first saw Judy Jones as a young boy. Like a fairytale, there’s “love at first sight”. Any fairytale would have ended this story with Dexter and Judy falling in love and spending the rest of their
Fitzgerald juxtaposes harsh commanding images & sound of nature with soft sounds and mans attempt to overpower nature in order to show mans greed in the age of the "bigger, better, faster" mentality. In this passage, Fitzgerald uses imagery and symbolism to portray his thoughts of the American dream. Fitzgerald uses vivid and lively words such as "summer," "wind," "earth," "trees," "frogs," "stars," and "heavens" to create an image of life and purity. Being a modernist, Fitzgerald believed in the power of nature, and how man made things should never be compared to those created by God. Fitzgerald continues to pair these lively words with words that signify the "bigger, better, faster" mentality. New technologies that are mentioned include "garages," "red gas-pumps," "pools of light," " abandoned grass roller," and "mansion." By using these words, Fitzgerald shows how these items of technology are beginning to mix with elements of nature, and by juxtaposing them with those words associated with creations of God, Fitzgerald can demonstrate how America was too focused in on their materialistic ways. Their new technologies such as red-gas pumps or an abandoned grass roller signify mans attempt to battle nature. Be it by using up natures' natural resources to fuel an automobile and pollute the environment, or by leaving a grass trimming device out on the lawn to kill the grass beneath it, Fitzgerald does a nice job showing mans attempts to overpower nature.
Fitzgerald emphasizes that earned wealth has the power to corrupt. In “Winter Dreams,” Dexter Green is depicted as a hard-working, middle class boy who quits his day job to later start a laundromat business. In the process, he falls in love with
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald better known as F. Scott Fitzgerald was an American writer during the early 20th century. Fitzgerald wrote in what was known as the modernism era or modernist movement. During this time following World War 1, Western art and literature started to go against past norms and began to create different forms of art to adhere to the changing of society. One of Fitzgerald’s short stories during this time period was “Winter Dreams”. “Winter Dreams” starts out following the main character, Dexter Green, as a child while he works at a golf course as a caddy in Black Bear, Minnesota. Dexter shortly quits after meeting a golfer named Judy
A doctor, a firefighter, a teacher, an astronaut: these are the kind of answers children give when asked the infamous question: What do you want to be when you grow up? As you grow older, this repetitive question becomes annoying because it forces you to confront and decide what exactly you want to do when you have been through adolescence. This conundrum is what plagues two characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Winter Dreams.” In this story, Judy Jones and Dexter Green chase after their own dreams and collide multiple times along the way. Jones wants to continue in her current lifestyle of freedom, power, and fame which seems attainable with her charm; however, Jones’ manipulative tendencies make her unappealing to people after a time.
The philosopher Karl Marx once said, “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness” (Marx). Marx argues that social circumstances determine one’s value and belief. Therefore, in his short story “Winter Dreams”, F. Scott Fitzgerald supports this Marxist theory by exposing that the proletariat is oppressed by the bourgeoisie’s ideology that the goal of life lies in status and material success, wrongly leading the middle-class to pursue inappropriate goals and ultimately to lose personal identity as developed through vivid imagery, starting with depicting a proletarian’s dream, followed by his success and transformation by a materialist, and ending with his personal deception.
In John Knowles’ novel, A Separate Piece, the main Character, Gene Forrester, has to learn to become friends with his hazardous roommate, Phineas, at his school, Devon, in New Hampshire. The novel is affected by a number of changes, however the largest and most significant change is the change in seasons. In Thomas C. Foster’s novel, How to read literature like a Professor, chapter twenty explains the significance of the seasons. Foster states that, “Summer [symbolizes] adulthood and romance and fulfillment and passion,” while, “ winter [symbolizes] old age and resentment and death.” John Knowles’ book A Separate Peace, all aspects of Summer, Fall, and Winter are excellently represented as explained in Thomas C. Foster’s novel, How to read
To divorce an adored wife for a woman who will undoubtedly never love back seems unreal and comfortless. But for Dexter Green, in “Winter Dreams,” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, this will become a heartless reality. Dexter Green makes it his most important goal to capture the love of a beautiful young woman. However, the girl has no interest in having a long-term, serious relationship with Dexter. Dexter will, unfortunately, find out the hard way that his goal will be fulfilled under different circumstances. Although, from the start of Dexter’s ominous journey, he believed his love for Judy would progress to an even greater state. Many would suppose he was fighting a losing battle from the beginning of his journey. Fitzgerald’s