Love in Winter Dreams Essay

Illusions of Love

Love is something that can make someone completely happy or can make them totally miserable. It makes people wonder, how this four letter word, can create complete and utter chaos in a persons life? How, completely sane people can do stupid things all in the name of LOVE; and where people will ignore giant red-flags or character flaws in others in the belief that one is In Love. In F. Scott Fitzgeralds story Winter Dreams, we read about Dexter Green a young man that comes from a middle-class background with dreams of becoming successful. Ambitions that he begins to formulate from the time he was a caddy at a very upscale golf course. Dreams that drive him to believe that one day he would be back on those golf greens, but as a member and not a caddy. While this success story is an important factor, it is the ill-fated, one-sided love affair he has with Judy Jones that makes this story interesting. Dexters idealized image of Judy Jones is unreal and it takes him half his life to realize this fact.

As John Callahan notes in his book, F. Scott Fitzgerald's Evolving American Dream: The "Pursuit of Happiness" in Gatsby, Tender is the Night, and The Last Tycoon, The first thing to be said about Fitzgeralds novels is that these enactments of the American dream are expressed in the love affairs and worldly ambitions(Callahan 147) Keeping up with this theme, the story follows Dexter as he pursues his goal to be successful. The dreams that make him older that what he really needs to be, as he states, Im too old, and to think that this statement came from a fourteen year-old. Dexters character can be described as ambitious, intelligent, hard-headed, and hard-working, it is with these characteristics that he builds his life on the blue-print his winter dreams. He begins his journey by attending a prestigious school back east, knowing that this will open doors for him, versus going to the local state college. He wanted not association with glittering things and glittering people he wanted the glittering things themselves. (Mizener 58) Now while Dexters obsession to become wealthy and successful doesnt include Judy at this period of time, it does indirectly. The social status that Dexter is wanting is the world that Judy currently lives in. As critic Clinton S. Burhans, Jr. states in his article, Magnificently Attuned to Life":The Value of "Winter Dreams, Dexter Green, has a clear-eye perception and a hard-headed understanding that, all else being equal, it is better to be wealthy that to be poor, better to have money than not to have it, better to have a great deal of money than only a little. (Burhans, Jr. 90) The foundation to be better is well known in Dexters next goal which was for his children to live a better life than him, he wished his children to be like them (Mizener 63) In that passage we see that Dexter see himself as an outsider and believes that if he has all the right things in place his children will be accepted. Now, Fitzgerald indicates in the beginning of the story that Dexter didnt come from a poor background, but rather his parents were considered middle-class which back during that time is considered well off to some extent. His father owned the second best grocery store in Black Bear with the best being patronized by the wealthy in the town over. The wealthy men who he caddied for at the golf course came from what would be described as old money, money that more than likely was inherited and was passed down and not really earned thru hard work. Fitzgerald uses this generalized theme throughout his writings and its apparent in this story as well. It was thru hard work and perseverance that Dexter made a name from himself so that he can reach his goals of social status thru amassed wealth and the hopes of attaining the girl which in this case is Judy Jones. As the story progresses Dexter finds that working on creating, and amassing wealth to be easier than understand Judy and the relationship they have. As Mr. Burhans also attains to in his quote, The most beautiful and desirable girl in his world, she is one of the glittering things he has dreamed of having; and when he accepts the fact that she is beyond his grasp, he continues to love her and no one else. (Burhans Jr. 91)

Judy Jones, the girl that at eleven years old demanded that Dexter caddy her, in which he responded by quitting his caddy job and begin plotting his future. In William Faheys F. Scott Fitzgerald and the American Dream, he states, In turning away from Judy, creates the future that makes association with her possible. (Fahey 139) So as Dexter amassed his wealth back east, he will not run into Judy again untill he is twenty-three and she is twenty. The setting of their reunion so to speak is on the same golf course of there initial meeting. She still has the same attitide that she did at eleven and Mr. Hedrick is quick to point it out to Dexter and the other members of their golfing party. That Judy JonesAll she needs is to be turned up and spanked for six months and then be married off to an old-fashioned cavalry captain. (Mizener 61) By this exclamination from Mr. Hedrick, Dexter should have realized that Miss Jones was still a self-absorbed girl and sought his dreams with someone else. But, like a moth to a flame Dexter begins what would be the courtship of him and Judy Jones. Judy, has the craracteristics of those of a sea nymph or a siren. While at age eleven Judy was descrbed by Dexter as, beautifully ugly as little girls are apt to be.. (Mizener 55) he sees her years later and describes her as arrestingly beautiful. (Mizener 61) A statement that is attested to by some of the other golfers in his group the day he see her again. The power that Judy has over the oposite sex is apparent through out the story a girl that is so use to getting her way that is almost comical to read her end in this story. Her inability to commit to one guy let alone Dexter should have been a sign for him to move on and find happiness with someone else. He was, as he found before the summer eneded, one of a varying dozen who circulated about her. (Mizener 65) He threw away the relationship he had with Irene Scheerer, a girl that he found companionship with and was in the process of being formally engaged to. But, Judy sensing that she was about to lose Dexter decided to make her presence known, along with showing what kind of power she held over him. But it was that manipulation from that act that opened Dexters eyes to some extent. His goal was to move back east and take care of business but the war came and allow him the repreive that he needed so he would have to address his feeling in his tragic love life. As Fitzgerald indicates in the story, This story is not his biography (Mizener 73) but does move us past the years he was in the war and takes us to when he is thirty-two and living in New York. A client meets with him and in passing indicates to him a friend of his has a wife from his town. He proceeds to tell him of her fate, Awfully nice girl, Im sort of sorry for her. (Mizener 73) He indicates that while she once was pretty and now is all right as the marriage has seemed to have aged her to some extent. Judys husband who is the clients friend is not faithful and at times treats her like the devil. Its karma to some extent to see the cards that life has dealt her. It is shortly after the client leaves that Dexter reflects on what he has learned and realizes that he is crying. Gerald Pike describes it best in his story, Four Voices in Winter Dreams, when he states Dexter cries with good reason, his images of Judy Jones no longer create an imaginative present, he loses no only his ability to go on loving her. (Pike) The foundation that he placed both is dreams and love for this girl on was shattered by this gentelmans revelation that Judy was her former self to some extent. Since he doesnt really posses her, she cannot fade in his mind. But thanks to the information provided by the client Judy has faded, she is no longer the self absorbed, beautiful girl of his youth. She has now faded into marriage and respectabillity and childern. To know she is in love with a man that to some extent treats her fairly, but is completely unfaithful to her is very sad. So knowing this, the illuision or dream of love that has now been completely shattered for Dexter. While the interpretation of the final scene has be disagreeed upon by many critics, Brian Way affirms this theory, in his book, F. Scott Fitzgerald, when he states, Dexters tear stem from his sudden realization that he cannot repeat the past. (Way 56)

So, what this story turns out to be about is really not the loss of romantic love for Dexter. Its much more tragic than that, it is about the impossibility of love. For the glittering beloved is, in a sense, compounded of the very stuff one would sacrifice to achieve it: dominance, power, the wealth and worldly success that romantic love is an alternative to. Winning what he needs to win her dominion, power, dollars he has the substance that she symbolizes and longer needs her. Her inhumanity is matched ultimately- by his own. The real tragedy for this story is not Dexters loss of the girl. It is his loss of his youthful dreams. Dexters tears at the end of winter dreams are not for Judy; they are for his lost self. Winter Dreams ends on a somber note, with Dexter Green realizing that long ago, there was something in me, but now that thing is gone (Mizener 75) The tragic love life of Fitzgerald is written for all to see in most of his stories, to see that loving someone doesnt always give you the happily ever after ending is seen in this story.