Dex Green In The Great Gatsby

Dexter Green is the more interesting character of the short story and unlike Judy, he has more dimension to his character. This is mainly due to his quest of winning Judy over and what she represents to him. He begins the story as bright and motivated youngster. Even while working as a caddy in his younger years, he was already a smart and successful chap, but at the same time dissatisfied with his positions in society – it is a characteristic which is commonly shared between Fitzgerald’s characters. This can be observed in his daydreams which he creates on the golf course while caddying. His father owns the second best grocery store in his town, hence working for him is not a necessity. If he would like to, he could inherit the shop once his

Fall made him clinch his hands and tremble and repeat idiotic sentences to himself, and make brisk abrupt gestures of command to imaginary audiences and armies. October filled him with hope which November raised to a sort of ecstatic triumph, and in this mood the fleeting brilliant impressions of the summer at Sherry Island were ready grist to his mill.” (WD 218)
Winter is the period where everything is still and quiet, it offers a great opportunity for self-reflection and to get lost in thoughts. Winter, for Dexter, is the time for daydreaming about things he wants to achieve, goals he wants to reach, and the time for creating a persona he wants to become. His hidden, anticipated dreams seemingly define his character and when he meets Judy again, everything he ever wanted becomes her or is centered around her.
He decides at age fourteen that he is too old to caddy anymore. This abrupt decision was made when he met little Judy Jones, for whom he refused to serve as a caddy, and this encounter led him to create a new direction for his

When he learns about Judy’s recent life, he is suddenly struck with the realization that he cannot recall memories about her, although, up until this point he was certain that he had already forgotten about them. When he understands and accepts this, he is finally able to grieve for himself :
“ For the first time in years the tears were streaming down his face. But they were for himself . . . . For he had gone away and he could never go back any more. The gates were closed, the sun was gone down, and there was no beauty but the gray beauty of steel that withstands all time. Even the grief he could have borne was left behind in the country of illusion, of youth, of the richness of life, where his winter dreams had flourished”. (WD 235-6)
In this passage, he grieves for the end of his youth, his winter dreams, accepting that they were nothing more than illusions, and he also grieves for his inability to dream again. Dreaming was such an integral part of him, that seemingly without them he can no longer understand his identity: “long ago, there was something in me, but now that thing is gone” and “I cannot care. That thing will come back no more” (236). By this, Fitzgerald suggests that with the loss of Dexter’s idealism, he also loses himself—who he used to