Magical Thinking In The Grapes Of Wrath By F. Scott Fitzgerald

Magical thinking is the thought that your behaviors, mindsets, and other aspects have some significance to reality. Trying to manifest something to be true, trying to accomplish something with no effort, and wishing something into reality are all forms of magical thinking. Magical thinking can be harmless, but it can also have devastating impacts on someone’s mentality. In my experience, magical thinking has had negative impacts on my mental health. I went through a complicated relationship where I knew it would not work, but I tried to convince myself it would. I clung to the relationship because I truly wanted to work with this person and wished that eventually, with time, they would feel the same way. I would constantly think to myself and

He was overcome by his winter dream, by his wish for Judy Jones. This is just the beginning of Dexter’s journey to damnation. Another form of Dexter’s magical thinking is his obsession with being better than others in class and wealth. This drive stems from his upbringing as the son of the second-best grocery owner. Since the beginning, Dexter has been dreaming of becoming a “...golf champion and defeated Mr. T. A. Hedrick in a marvelous match played a hundred times over the fairways of his imagination... (Fitzgerald 1.) Later in the story, Dexter puts himself above men his age in the Northwest to impress Judy Jones. This infatuation with wealth can be seen in the story, it states “He wanted not association with glittering things and glittering people--he wanted the glittering things themselves.” (Fitzgerald 2.) This quote about Dexter shows his need to obtain his winter dreams, to obtain the glittering things. Also, in the passage by Phil Stutz he states, “As we read ‘Winter Dreams,’ we will see a man who committed his entire life to running away from the shame and ugliness of his poverty and living in the winter dreams of wealth and glamor.” (Stutz

The impact of all those years of foolishness and delusion had finally made an impact on Dexter. With the knowledge from Devlin about Judy’s fate, Dexter feels a sense of grief, not for Judy, but for himself. In the story, it states, “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. Fitzgerald - 9 p.m. This part of the passage explains that just like his winter dreams, his youth and life had been left behind in his fantasy of pursuing wealth and Judy Jones. The text also mentions, “The dream is gone. Something had been taken from him. In a sort of panic he pushed the palms of his hands into his eyes and tried to bring up a picture of the waters lapping on Sherry Island and the moonlit veranda, and gingham on the golf-links and the dry sun and the gold color of her neck soft down.” (Fitzgerald 9.) Both these excerpts from the story emphasize Dexter’s feelings of sorrow. A dream he once so desperately tried to achieve had disappeared and is nothing but a memory