Winter Dreams by F. Scott Fitzgerald


“Winter Dreams,” by F. Scott Fitzgerald is an excellent example of a short story that is successful in its implementation of an attention-grabbing lead, protagonist motivation, and meaningful and descriptive dialogue. The protagonist of the story is Dexter Green, a boy from Minnesota, whose father owns the “second-best grocery store in Black Bear.” The title,'Winter Dreams refers to Dexter's youthful winter pondering and aspirations of becoming fabulously wealthy and surpassing his middle-class background. Dexter describes the winter as,“profoundly melancholy, hunted by ragged sparrows for the long season.” Winter's association with the dead and dormant foreshadow the ultimate outcome of Dexter's Winter Dreams.

Fitzgerald reveals Dexter's character in his lead, “Some of the caddies were poor as sin and lived in one-room houses with a neurasthenic cow in the front yard, but Dexter Green's father owned the second-best grocery store in Black Bear.” This intro immediately reveals Dexter's character to the reader. His use of the simile, “poor as sin” demonstrates his disgust at the idea of poverty. Fitzgerald also reveals Dexter's obsession with rank through his fixation on status, which is demonstrated by his use of the words,“second-best grocery store.” Fitzgerald adopts Dexter's snobbish tone and his fixation on status in the lead to set the stage for his motivations throughout the story.

Fitzgerald intricately reveals Dexter's motivations by showing the nature of Dexter's Winter Dreams through a series of significant experiences and encounters with Judy Jones, who personifies Dexter's desire for “the glittering things,” and their failure to bring him satisfaction. After becoming wealthy, Dexter believes that by 'obtaining' Judy Jones he will become the master of his winter dreams. Although Dexter comes from an upper-middle class background, he spends much of his youth socializing with the wealthy, because of his caddying job. The first time Dexter encounters Judy, she is only 11 years old and, “beautifully ugly as little girls are apt to be who are destined after a few years to be inexpressibly lovely and bring no end of misery to a great number of men.” At the golf course, Judy is petulant and beats her nurse cursing insults. At the time Dexter is no more than 14, but is seized with an inexplicable desire to quit his job at the sight of her. From that moment on, she becomes an object of his desire. The next time Dexter sees Judy Jones is again at the golf course, by now he is 23, and has already achieved great wealth through a chain of laundries that he owns. His desire to have Judy returns to him at the sight of her with another man. Fitzgerald shows Dexter's insatiable desire for that which he cannot have through this encounter with Judy. Another time, Dexter is peacefully listening to classical music while laying in a lake near Judy's house. Judy drives up to him on a boat and asks him to drive it for her. She tells Dexter that there is a man in the house waiting for her, but she escaped because he said that she was his “ideal.” After their swim, Judy invites Dexter to her house the next day for lunch, where Dexter is notably disappointed by the lack of fanfare that takes place. Later, Judy leaves town and Dexter becomes engaged to a girl named Irene, with whom he is happy. However, upon Judy's return, Dexter rushes back to her with open arms, despite her lack of faithfulness. This shows his incredible weakness to his Winter Dreams, which blind him to Judy's inability to commit and the inevitability of Judy running away from him again. Fitzgerald's method of revealing Dexter's motivations through his encounters with Judy are successful in helping the reader understand the motivations for his actions.

Fitzgerald's descriptive and meaningful dialogue explain Dexter and Judy's deepest natures. Like Dexter, Judy looks for happiness in the wrong places. She says brokenly, “I’m more beautiful than anybody else, why can’t I be happy?” Judy's belief that her looks should equate her happiness correspond with Dexter's belief that his hard work and riches should lead to his ultimate satisfaction with life. Fitzgerald reveals that Dexter's Winter Dreams will lead to his demise when he describes him, “He reached out for the best without knowing why he did it—and sometimes he ran up against the mysterious denials and prohibitions in which life indulges.” This quote reveals Dexter's desire to validate his existence and his inherent nature to seeking betterment. Even after Dexter has become incredibly wealthy, he still feels like an outsider because of his nouveau-riche status. Through carefully constructed, meaningful dialogue, Fitzgerald reveals that Dexter's obsessive desire to become wealthy and live the perfect life prevent him from any kind of happiness he could have possessed.

Fitzgerald's use of a powerful lead, clear protagonist motivation, and intricate dialogue reveal the nature of Dexter's “Winter Dreams” which are formed during a dead and dormant time of year, which foreshadows their ultimate outcome. The title “Winter Dreams” is also a metaphor for the American Dream and its often unhappy ending. “Winter Dreams” is a commentary on the tendency in humans to seek wealth as a form of fulfillment. The last line of the story sums up the point about Dexter's dissatisfaction. He has just learned that Judy Jones has been married, and is not longer beautiful. Something inside him breaks, and he realizes that his Winter Dreams have been lost, "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."