Idealism in “Winter Dreams”

Dexter’s dream that begins, then flourishes, but becomes unattainable in the end, exemplifies F. Scott Fitzgerald’s corrupt idea of the typical American Dream. Society as a whole believes the American Dream consists of the freedom of individuality, material wealth, better landscape, and religious idealism. They look for the idealistic concept of what they want it to convey, rather than what it actually is. “Winter Dreams” portrays different thoughts of Fitzgerald’s, particularly from events that happened in his own life during the Jazz Age.
The beginning of Dexter Green’s dream happens around 1911 at a golf course in Minnesota that he caddied for at the age of fourteen. A young girl of eleven, “beautifully ugly as little girls are apt to be,” arrives to golf with her nanny when Dexter is instantly charmed by the girl’s beauty. For Dexter, the girl appears “to be inexpressibly lovely” and will “bring no end of misery to a great number of men” (590). ...