The Great Gatsby and Winter Dreams
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Although there are only two main characters in the short story Winter Green, Dexter Green and Judy Jones, they parallel three characters from The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway, Jay Gatsby, and Daisy Buchanan. Dexter Green, a business tycoon, comes from humble beginnings, just as Jay Gatsby. The motivation behind their success involves romance and love. However, Dexter Green can also be compared to Nick concerning their personalities and outlook on life. Judy Jones, a fickle, shallow, prideful girl is compared to Daisy Buchanan, who is also careless and conceited. They both grow up to live foolishly and blindly in their beauty, but in the end face a reality far from what they had in mind. F. Scott Fitzgeralds novel The Great Gatsby and short story titled Winter Dreams are comparative in many aspects, and they have distinct similarities between characters, who attain similar personalities, goals, characteristics, and imperfections.
Although there are only two main characters in the short story Winter Dreams, they both have striking similarities with two characters from The Great Gatsby. Dexter Greens character is desperate to validate his success and achievements after growing up in a humble Midwestern family. Determined to change his circumstances, he blindly pursues wealth and a sophisticated socialite life. This ultimately becomes the one obstacle standing in his way of personal satisfaction and peace as he is unable to resolve questions concerning his identity and which people are important to completing his identity. He seems to do this almost purposefully, as he is afraid of commitment and prefers being alone even though he seems to be dependent on women for love and self- reassurance. Throughout the short story he mentions over three girls in whom he has fallen in and out of love. When he was young and barely making a name for himself, he coveted money and its benefits of easy living; however, once this goal has been attained, Dexter resents the fact he had to work hard for his wealth.
The satisfaction in becoming one of the youngest men to reach his level of wealth is overshadowed by the fact he cannot buy his way into having Judy Jones. His blind love towards her keeps him from seeing her definite flaws, although he claims he does not want her as a wife. For Dexter, love and money are almost one in the same. His fixation on the ideal proves to be his number one obstacle to achieving happiness. He persists in believing that Judy is his ideal, perfect woman, but realistically she is heavily flawed with imperfections which Dexter soon faces by a coworker. But even then, however, he cannot face the truth and laughs off the fact she is unhappy, ignored by men, and not even recognized for the sheer beauty he remembers so vividly. Her transformation into a housewife only then shatters Dexters ideals and beliefs of her, along with the reasoning behind his wealth and status. These characteristics and actions are very similar to two characters from The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby himself.
Dexter Greens character is very similar to that of Jay Gatsbys, the protagonist from The Great Gatsby. Firstly, Dexter and Gatsby share the fact that they both rose from an impoverished childhood in the Midwest to become exceptionally wealthy. This goal is also attached in some way toward love and women. Dexters ideals about love and women were tied with money as goals to be accomplished but never fully satisfied. Gatsby desire to be wealthy is directly linked with his love for Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby falls in love with the aura of beauty which surrounds Daisy, as well as her charm, grace, and innocent demeanor. In the same way, Dexter falls in love with Judy on account of her sense of adventure, spontaneity, and exquisite beauty. On the first day of meeting her “his heart turned over like the fly- wheel of the boat, and for the second time, her casual whim gave a new direction to his life.” From the very first moment he knew her, she produced a desire in him unlike anything he had ever experienced, enough to give him a new direction to his life of which he had spent so much time dreaming, hoping, and planning for.
Gatsby and Dexter posses a lack of fulfillment and satisfaction in their success, which in the end, proves unworthy of them both. Gatsby provides an almost fail- proof façade of happiness- with the weekly opulent parties, gigantic mansion kept all to himself, the expensive cars, and overall lavish lifestyle in which he portrays. All the while he is a lovesick, innocent man trying to find true happiness in the simplicity of love; however, through his overachieving, he turns this love into a web of lies, lust, and deceit. He invests his life hoping of one day having Daisy to himself; this unrealistic ideal sets the shaky foundation for all of his dealings and actions