Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
The portrayal of women in american literature
How are women portrayed in american literature
“Winter Dreams” by F. Scott FitzgeraldCharacter Analysis
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
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
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.
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
When Dexter embodies all of his dreams in the beautiful Judy Jones, her fickle attitude and the inevitability
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.”
The short story of “Winter Dreams” was written around the same time that Fitzgerald was developing ideas for a story to turn into a novel. While The Great Gatsby wasn’t published until 1925, “Winter Dreams” débuted in 1922 and the similarities between the novel and short story were done on purpose. “Winter Dreams” became a short draft which Fitzgerald paralleled The Great Gatsby after, but also differentiated the two in specific ways (“Winter Dreams” 217). The main characters are both men, Jay Gatsby and Dexter Green, who desire for the American dream, not necessarily for themselves, but in order to lure back the women they idealize. In The Great Gatsby and “Winter Dreams” F. Scott Fitzgerald’s constant theme is shown through the characters of Jay Gatsby and Dexter Green, both similar in the way they pursue the American dream of wealth and social status in order to try and win back the women they love, but also different in specific ways.
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.
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
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.
A dream is a deep ambition and desire for something; everybody tries to reach their dreams no matter how far away they may seem. The characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s stories strive for nothing less than “The Great American Dream”. This is the need to be the best of the best, top of the social ladder, and to be happier and more successful than anyone has been before. Fitzgerald writes about this American Dream that every character has but can never achieve; the dream is kept unattainable due to obstacles, the disadvantages of being low on the social ladder, and also the restrictions of having a high social status.
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.
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.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. “Winter Dreams.” American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. Seventh ed. Vol. II. New York: Norton & Company, 2008. 1010-25. Print. The Norton Anthology.
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
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.
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