Character Analysis Of Dexter In F. Scott Fitzgerald's Winter Dreams

In this country called America, the citizens of this great country have this desire or need to always want more then they have. Since this country was started long ago, there has been this thing everyone refers to as the American Dream. The American Dream is the idea that any man or woman can achieve prosperity, happiness, and success through hard work and determination. F. Scott Fitzgerald, in the short story “Winter Dreams”, uses the character Dexter to illustrate the point of the American Dream across the poor and middle class of the country, and if they do achieve some prosperity they are still often left unsatisfied and wanting more. In the story “Winter Dreams”, there are six different sections to the overall story of Dexter's life.

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In the second section of the short story Dexter is attending a University that only the wealthiest patrons send their children. Dexter was well looked up to, as most fathers thought of him as a well put together young man. Fitzgerald wrote “ All about him rich men's sons were peddling bonds precariously, or investing patrimonies precariously, or plodding through the two dozen volumes of the "George Washington Commercial Course," but Dexter borrowed a thousand dollars on his college degree and his confident mouth, and bought a partnership in a laundry”(Page 2). The wealthy men looked at Dexter as an intelligent and very clever person. By demonstrating this,Fitzgerald is showing the process of how Dexter is working toward the American Dream. “Judy Jones”, He uses the quote above to show how dexter takes a different, unusual approach toward making investments and how he benefits from doing so. Toward the end of section two, dexter is relaxing on a raft in a lake, when he is come upon by Judy Jones in a boat. She calls out to him to board the boat so she can water ski. This is just one of the examples of Dexter getting pulled more and more towards this girl in a sense of interest and also becoming the living embodiment of the “American Dream” at the same

She never really seems to keeps them around for very long. Fitzgerald wrote, “But at the end of a month it was reported that Judy was yawning. At a dance one night she sat all evening in a motor-boat with a local beau, while the New Yorker searched the club for her frantically. She told the local 6 beau that she was bored with her visitor, and two days later he left”(Page 5). It was often found that Judy got bored of men very quickly, and this represents how so many men are drawn to her but she just plays with there emotions, as does the American Dream with this