There is a quote from an anonymous speaker that says, “It takes a couple seconds to say Hello, but forever to say Goodbye.” This quote can be related to the fictional characters, Jay Gatsby and Dexter Green. Both were men who met an extraordinary woman and could never seem to let her go. These are characters from the book The Great Gatsby, and the short story Winter Dreams, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby is one of the greatest novels to come out of the Jazz Age in the 1920s. The two stories have similar plots. They are both about men who met a woman and fell in love with her, but in one way or another, she got away from them. They spent several years of their lives gaining money and rising up in society just to get her back. …show more content…
In both The Great Gatsby, Daisy is Gatsby’s final piece of his reincarnation. She is the one who would complete his climb up the ladder of society. Likewise, Judy enacts this role for Dexter in Winter Dreams. “The dream was gone. Something had been taken from him. In a sort of panic he...tried to bring up a picture of the waters on Sherry Island and the moonlit veranda, and gingham on the golf-links and the dry sun and the gold color of her neck’s soft down...Why, these things were no longer in the world! They had existed and they existed no longer.” (Winter Dreams 9). When Dexter discovered that Judy had gotten married, he felt like all his dreams were gone. He associated his dream of wealth and luxury with Judy. So, when she was no longer available to him, he felt as if his fantasies were out-of-reach as well. “The windows were ajar and gleaming white…the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling…They were both in white…” (The Great Gatsby 8). When we first meet Daisy, she is surrounded by the color white. This theme continues throughout the book. The color white, in this story, represents money and wealth. Daisy was a very wealthy girl and came from “old money.” Old money was exactly what Gatsby needed to completely fit into society. If one were to look closely at the two characters, they would see that there are many more likenesses between
However, Dexter faces reality when he is told Judy had gotten married. Dexter falls apart, realizing that his lifelong dream that he had given everything to achieve had been broken and
Allison Beckman Mr. McGuirk English III Honors 17 October 2014 Defining Fitzgerald’s “Winter Dreams” As the Prototype of The Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby and “Winter Dreams”, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, focus in on human and society relationships. While fulfilling the characteristics of the well-known lifestyle of the 1920’s, often referred to as the Jazz Age, Fitzgerald takes the reader through the tragic life of Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby, as well as the life of Dexter Green in “Winter Dreams.” Jay Gatsby has a constant struggle with time; trying to re-obtain the past life he had with Daisy Buchanan while attempting to live the so-called American Dream.
Jay Gatsby from The Great Gatsby and Dexter Green from Winter Dreams both encounter the dangers of being driven by their desire to achieve the American Dream and the pursuit of their unrealistic infatuations. However, while Dexter’s ambitions for success are driven by his own desire to work hard and attain financial freedom, Gatsby’s ambition for success is derived entirely from his infatuation with Daisy Buchanan, a beautiful and charming girl he met and fell in love with in his late 20s. Dexter’s values and willingness to take initiative for his own life before the life of others is what differentiates him from Gatsby’s delusional characteristics which ultimately lead to his death. Comparing the characters of both Jay Gatsby and Dexter Green
Despite all of his success, he still has regrets about feeling that he wasted his childhood chasing after Judy and spending so much time achieving a wealthy status. “For he had gone away and he could never go back anymore,” (Fitzgerald 550) this shows how he wishes he could go back in time and spend less time on these things, but sadly he can’t. No matter what Jay and Dexter did or did not have, they always endeavored for
Yet, like Gatsby, Dexter started building his life for Judy from the young age of fourteen. After all of their work and wasting their lives to create the perfect life for them, neither of the two got the women they loved. With such similar love stories, there is a slight difference in their
Characters in novels can have obsessions with people, the same as in the world readers live in today. In the book, The Great Gatsby, the main, male character, Gatsby, is obsessed with a woman named Daisy Buchanan. In the passage Winter Dreams, Dexter, the main male character, is obsessed with a woman, Judy Jones. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote both of these novels/ passages. The Great Gatsby is a story about a man revolving part of his life around trying to achieve his American dream by conforming to a woman and society 's standards.
Chasing the American Dream “Life is essentially a cheat and its conditions are those of defeat; the redeeming things are not happiness and pleasure but the deeper satisfactions that come out of struggle,”quoted by the famous author F. Scott Fitzgerald, in behold of the truth. In the two stories Winter Dreams and The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, both demonstrate a high demanded society of wealth and social class. Both main characters from each story, known as Dexter and Gatsby are reaching to fit in the high class society to achieve the American Dream. Which is well-known as old money in New York for Gatsby and general wealth in Minnesota for Dexter. As both characters try to fit in this society to impress the woman of their dreams, they see the other side of love and its’ effects of it.
The theme of The Great Gatsby and “Winter Dreams” is Money does not buy happiness by F. Scott Fitzgerald the book and short story show character,setting and plot. Gatsby was a young boy who dreamed about becoming rich having and having a great life. Gatsby met Daisy when he was in the army, he fell in love with her and he played a role, when Gatsby left he did not come back. He wanted Daisy to have everything, she only married because Gatsby was poor she tried waiting for me (Gatsby 139). Dexter was also a young boy he did not have riches he was a poor boy, who got wealthy long ago, long ago, there was something in me, but now that thing is gone now that is gone, that thing is gone (“Winter Dream” 9 ).
At the end of The Great Gatsby, Nick reflects upon Gatsby’s life and pursuit on the beach where “the green light” at the end of Daisy’s dock can be seen. As a significant metaphor, “the green light” represents Gatsby’s dream which guides him to keep pursuing wealth and social status, while the position of the light, the distant and inaccessible Daisy’s dock, indicates the close connection between Gatsby’s unreal dream and Daisy, and as well the disillusionment of the dream. In the last three paragraphs, Nick explains the disillusionment of Gatsby’s dream, “He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it” (162). Gatsby has always strived for his ambition and dream.
The color white means freshness and innocence but in the article Symbolic Meanings of Colors in The Great Gatsby, it says something different. It states that the color, “white actually symbolizes empty, vacuity, superficiality, ruthlessness and selfish to a great extent in the novel” (Zhang 1). Daisy is a sweet and innocent on the outside but deep down she has a cold and selfish heart that does not care for love, only the money. She reveals her selfishness when Gatsby dies and she does not show any sadness and leaves to go and travel with her
Characters in novels can have obsessions with people, the same as in the world readers live in today. In the book, The Great Gatsby, the main, male character, Gatsby, is obsessed with a woman named Daisy Buchanan. In the passage Winter Dreams, Dexter, the main male character, is obsessed with a woman, Judy Jones. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote both of these novels/ passages introducing the same theme. The Great Gatsby is a story about a man who has revolved part of his life around trying to achieve his American dream by conforming to a woman and society 's standards.
Jay Gatsby, the title character of the novel “The Great Gatsby” is a man that can not seem to live without the love of his life. Trying to win Daisy over consumes Gatsby’s life as he tries to become the person he thinks she would approve of. What most readers do not realize is that Jay Gatsby’s character mirrors many personality traits and concerns that the author of novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald, had. In fact, Gatsby and Fitzgerald are similar in that they both had a girl they wanted to win over, took a strong stance on alcohol, and ironically both had similar funerals, also, both people also symbolize the American dream.
John A. Pidgeon says that, “The theme of Gatsby is the withering of the American Dream”(Pidgeon 179). The prime example of this is Gatsby, who “believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther” (Fitzgerald 180). The green light symbolizes Gatsby’s dream to be upper class with Daisy, but he can never reach it. Furthermore, it is frustrating for him that when he does attain wealth, Daisy is still out of his reach.
“Winter Dreams” was published in 1926. Francis Scott Fitzgerald is most well-known for his novel “The Great Gatsby”. A common theme he is known for is the American dream and how it is corrupt. Fitzgerald enjoys writing about the poor boy chasing after the rich girl. This story is about a man named Dexter Green trying to achieve the American dream by obtaining the girl he adores.
Judy was part of Dexter’s winter dreams that he began to love her when he was only fourteen and worked as golf caddie. Unfortunately, Judy cannot give him the promise and what he wanted for life. Therefore, he engaged to Irene Scheerer, another woman that Green didn’t put much effort on her. Before the engaged announcement, he didn’t marry with Irene for Judy. At the end of winter dreams, he didn’t be with Judy, and Judy married with another man.