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Winter Dreams Many times when reading Scott Fitzgeralds novels, one can notice that he is not just describing a certain character, but he is rather describing himself. Fitzgerald is so strongly involved into his novels that sometimes it is difficult to differentiate between the real life story and fiction. The characters of Fitzgerald really do mirror the events of his own life. In his work Winter Dreams we can also see a great parallel with his own life.
This story is called "Winter Dreams" because it is about young Dexter Green who is a middle-class boy who works for pocket money each summer as a caddy on the local golf course, and each winter, in the fierce Minnesota cold, roams the frozen fields, imagining himself in scenes of local and imperial glory, swinging his arms to bring armies onto the field. His winter dream was to become rich, as the author said: He wanted not association with glittering things and glittering people-he wanted the glittering things themselves. Three of the most satisfying materials that a person could own is a home, money, and a car. At least one of these items is essential for a person no matter where they live. The home is the most satisfying material that a person could own.
A home is a place that one can go to rest, eat, and just live. A home provides memories and a place for a family to grow. A home satisfies people with protection, an investment, security, safety, and privacy. The home is definitely a key item of satisfying materials. Another satisfying material that a person could own is money.
Money is something that is very important to possess. Owning money can satisfy a persons hunger, shelter, and just everything it takes for that person to live. A person would not be satisfied if they did not own any money. They would be depressed and have to live on the streets. Money alone cannot satisfy a person on a whole but it brings together the whole term of satisfaction. The last item that is satisfying is a car.
A car is something that can satisfy ones need to get around. It is important to use to get to work, school, and places to far to venture on foot. A car is a machine with great power and can also satisfy one with air conditioning on a hot day. It can satisfy a person with ride to ones favorite place such as the beach.
A home, money, and a car are all materials that a person can own to satisfy them. Not only can materials satisfy a person but so can activities such as sports, relaxing, and sleeping. Playing sports can satisfy a persons body and mind. Participating in sports keeps one in shape satisfying their heart and health. Also it can satisfy a persons stress level by focusing on the activity. Sometimes not playing sports but just relaxing can be satisfying.
Relaxing and not working can give a person time to think, breathe, and their body to recuperate. Relaxing is a very satisfying activity. Another activity that is satisfying is sleeping. Curling up under the covers, closing ones eyes, and just clearing the mind is something very a satisfying that a person can easily do. Sleeping is essential for a person to be satisfied. As Fitzgerald tells us, Dexter was at bottom a practical man, and he becomes rich by a touchingly imaginative blend of dream and reality, building up a chain of dry-cleaning and laundry shops, specializing in the proper treatment of the imported tweeds of upper-class men and the delicate French lingerie of the wives.
At last, years later and by chance, after he is established in a New York skyscraper, he learns that Judy is married now, with a thick and unfeeling husband, tied down with the children. And she has lost her looks. After that news Dexter understood a very important thing that money and luxury are not the important factor in peoples lives. Money wont buy you your happiness. It is impossible! I think that Dexter realized that becoming rich was not his winter dream.
He thought money would do all the work, but it did not. Probably his dream was something else, like, being a satisfied man. As I see in the end he is not satisfied at all. The four closing paragraphs of this story are distinguished by Fitzgerald's complex explication of Dexter's sense of mutability: he grieves for the loss of his capacity to grieve. A person can posses qualities that make them feel satisfied.
Honesty, loving, and an optimistic personality are qualities that can make one feel very satisfied. Being honest about oneself and about what one does can make them feel proud of what they are in the end. Being honest can satisfy ones need to see what kind of person that you really are and shows that one is not afraid of what they are. Being loving is very satisfying. Giving off love will give love back in return. Love is an extremely satisfying quality in many ways.
Giving love will satisfy a person mentally and physically. Love is just very satisfying. Having an optimistic personality can be very satisfying. If one looks on the positive side of things they wont miss out on the important things in life and dwell on the good things. Being optimistic can satisfy a person so much. Honesty, loving, and having an optimistic personality are three qualities a person can posses that will make them very satisfied.
As we find out Dexter is a caddie to the more rich men we instantly see his social standing. The distinctive good mannered young man who dreams of being some time wealthy enough to own his caddie, and to fall in love with a wealthier and beautiful girl who all the men are dreaming of. Then just as expected the momentous first meeting takes place and the two fated lovers meet each other for the first time. There was a general ungodliness in the way her lips twisted down at the corners when she smiled, and in the- Heaven help us! - in the almost passionate quality of her eyes (360). Although he has not yet fallen in love with her he notices her attractiveness in this, the most imperative first meeting.
Dexter understands that if he is a caddy of the young Judy Jones, he will never be able to have her. Caddying would illustrate his lower social position and thus in her mind he would not have a prospect. What are you standing there like a dummy for? Go pick up the young ladys clubs (361). To which Dexter replies, I think Ill quit (361). He chooses to leave rather than caddy, possibly not only because of Judy Gill 2 but for his personal dreams of becoming triumphant, at this point Dexter has only seen the heroine and it is not until there next meeting that he would fall in love.
It is the second meeting that our hero comprehends that the heroine must be his one and he cannot live without her, the courtship begins. She was arresting beautiful (363). The second meeting has happened and Dexter does apprehend how beautiful she is. Nevertheless just like a love story should be the heroine does not notice Dexter as a potential suitor, therefore Dexter must prove himself commendable of her love.
Later the two have their first moment on their own together and for Dexter its something out of a fable. There was a fish jumping and a star shining and the lights around the lake were gleaming (365). Time rests still for him as he is with her, the whole thing is perfect as the portrayal of the lake and background suggest. One would suggest they would kiss and a spotless star would shoot across the sky, but Judy only wants him to drive the motor boat so she can go surfboarding. Whats your name?
He told her. Well why dont you come over to dinner to-morrow night? (365). The two star crossed lovers have their first date or so Dexter presumes. We know that in the opening of the story it was Dexter's dearth that kept him away from Judy, but now as he has become a doing well businessman it is other men that must be battled and overcome.
In this love story it is not a family dispute or the heroines daughter keeping the hero from his prize. Rather it is the heroines own monogamous way of life. I dont know whats the matter with me. Last night I thought I was in love with a man and to-night I think Im in love with you... (367). Lastly the moment we have all been awaiting for, Judy and Dexter fall in love and they would live happily thereafter. If this was the case it would not be a genuine love story.
Judy is not the type of a person who would settle down, she prefers to have numerous relationships. The hero falls in love with the girl, the female protagonist falls in love with the hero, then something occurs to one of them and the story goes on. The two of them do meet again as Judy returns home. This time it is Judy who magistrates Dexter, Id like to marry you if youll still have me, Dexter (373).
The moment that Dexter has waited for perhaps all his life to hear from Judy, but now paradoxically its his turn to be hesitant for he has already promised to Irene. Dexter's choice is the rational one for any love story he, as big a error as it is, possibly blinded by love says yes to her offer. Still, in a real love story fashion the two can never be together and the engagement is broken up by Judy. This makes the end of the story close as the two glide apart, Judy settles down and grows old. Her beauty and innocence are lost, a bad husband and kids. Dexter also grows older and stays single, with his ideal heroine in mind he reaches success that he always wanted.
Until even that comes to an end because no one can be comfortable in a love story, Dexter finds out of her fate and his own dreams are broken. Winter Dreams is a love story, a tragic love story at that. Probably Dexter never wanted Judy for himself but more likely to have as an own possession to show off his wealth and possessions. In his mind she was beautiful and ideal. However all that is crushed now and so are Dexter's Winter Dreams. Dexter is a character that learned from his experiences as he grew.
From the beginning of his career he knew what he wanted, He wanted not association with glittering things and glittering people -- he wanted the glittering things themselves. Often he reached out for the best without knowing why he wanted it -- and sometimes he ran up against the mysterious denials and prohibitions in which life indulges. He wouldnt agree that money, a home, and a car bring satisfaction. He had them all and kept them throughout his life but still didnt seem to be totally satisfied with his life.
He would agree that relaxation brings satisfaction. Dexter was satisfied when he relaxed, -- and because the sound of a piano over a stretch of water had always seemed beautiful to Dexter he lay perfectly quiet and listened. The act of relaxing reminded him of what his relaxing used to be like, The tune the piano was playing at that moment had been gay and new five years before when Dexter was a sophomore at college. They had played it at a prom once when he could not afford the luxury of proms, and he had stood outside the gymnasium and listened.
The sound of the tune precipitated in him a sort of ecstasy and it was with that ecstasy he viewed what happened to him now. It was a mood of intense appreciation, a sense that, for once, he was magnificently attune to life and that everything about him was radiating a brightness and a glamour he might never know again. Dexter would agree that being loving is a quality that gives one satisfaction. He felt this satisfaction when he was with Judy on her boat.
His heart turned over like the fly-wheel of the boat, and, for the second time, her casual whim gave a new direction to his life. Dexter was in love with Judy and he saw that Judy was never honest to him. He didnt mind that Judy was never honest, When she assured him that she had not kissed the other man, he knew she was lying -- yet he was glad that she had taken the trouble to lie to him. Finally he wouldnt agree that honesty is satisfying because he was just satisfied with a lie. "Winter Dreams" is a kind of rough sketch for the novel which Fitzgerald did not yet know he wanted to write. It is more rooted in social reality. "Long ago, " Dexter says at the story's close, "long ago, there was something in me, but now that thing is gone, that thing is gone. I cannot cry.
I cannot care. That thing will come back no more. " He has lived too long with a single dream, and when it shattered, he entered, a community of loss, "material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about. " Bibliography: Fitzgerald, Scott, Winter Dreams. Boston: Oxford University Press, 1997 Anderson, W. R. , F. Scott Fitzgerald, in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 4: American Writers in Paris, 1920 - 1939, Gale Research, 1980, pp. 132 - 50. Flibbert, Joseph, 'Winter Dreams': Overview, in Reference Guide to Short Fiction, 1 st ed. , St.
James Press, 1994. Norris, Margot, Modernist Eruptions, in The Columbia History of the American Novel, edited by Emory Elliot, Gale Research, 1989, 311 - 30. Prigozy, Ruth, F. Scott Fitzgerald, in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 86: American Short-Story Writers, 1910 - 1945, First Series, Gale Research, 1989, 99 - 123.
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