- Winter Dreams
Infobox short story |
name = Winter Dreams
title_orig =
translator =
author = F. Scott Fitzgerald
country =USA
language = English
series =
genre =Short story
published_in = "Metropolitan Magazine"
collected in "All The Sad Young Men"
publication_type = Magazine
Short Story Collection
publisher = Scribner (book)
media_type = Print
pub_date = December 1922
english_pub_date =
preceded_by =
followed_by ="Winter Dreams" is a
short story byF. Scott Fitzgerald that first appeared in the "Metropolitan Magazine " in December1922 , and was collected in "All The Sad Young Men " in1926 . It is one of Fitzgerald's finest stories and is frequently anthologized. In the Fitzgerald canon, it is considered to be in the 'Gatsby era', as many of its themes were later expanded upon in his famous novel "The Great Gatsby " in1925 .Plot summary
Dexter Green is a middle-class boy who aspires to be part of the "old money" elite. He starts out as a teenage golf
caddy at a Golf Club in Lake Erminie, Minnesota, which has been suggested is really White Bear Lake, where Fitzgerald lived for a short time at the Yacht Club. It is when he is caddying that he is first introduced to Judy Jones, a spoiled eleven year old. Dexter works under Judy Jones' father, Mortimer Jones, at the club, and one day decides he is too old to work there. In reality, he quits his job not because of his age but because he doesn't like feeling inferior to the people for whom he is caddying.After college, Dexter buys a partnership in a laundry business and becomes wealthy and successful. He returns to the Sherry Island Golf Club and is invited to play golf with the men for whom he once caddied. He encounters Judy Jones again on the golf course, only now she is older and amazingly beautiful. Later in the evening Dexter takes a raft out onto the lake, and runs into Judy, who is driving a motor boat. She asks him to take over while she rides on a surfboard attached to the boat. After this encounter, Judy invites Dexter to dinner, where their affair begins. He soon finds that he is one of a dozen men she is stringing along.
After about 18 months, Dexter grows tired of chasing Judy and becomes engaged to Irene Scheerer, a kind but ordinary looking girl, while Judy is vacationing in Florida. When Judy returns, however, she again captures Dexter's heart and asks him to marry her. Dexter breaks off his engagement with Irene, only to be dropped again by Judy a month later. To deal with his heartbreak, Dexter joins the army to fight in
World War I .We next see Dexter several years later as a single, successful New York business man. He meets a client who recalls having attended Judy Jones' wedding. The client describes Judy's husband's alcoholism and torrid affairs, and says that Judy has "faded."
The reality of Judy's life conflicts with Dexter's vision of her, and her downfall destroys Dexter's "winter dreams." The dream of being with her -- an unfulfilled dream -- has kept him from realizing that the glory of his social climb lay in its progression rather than in its fulfillment.
External links
* [http://www.sc.edu/fitzgerald/winterd/winter.html Complete Text, sc.edu]
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