Winter Dreams Research Paper

F. Scott Fitzgerald, originally Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, was born to a family that “was considered socially prominent and genteelly poor” (1557). With the help of relatives he attended Princeton and in 1917 he left Princeton and served in World War 1. While in Alabama for military training, he fell madly in love with Zelda. Fitzgerald wrote his first novel, This Side of Paradise and it appeared in March 1920. About one week after This Side of Paradise appeared Fitzgerald and Zelda married, but though their relationship started off great it quickly turned sour. By the 1930s, his wife became extremely ill and Fitzgerald took up excessive drinking, dying in 1940 after two heart attacks. Fitzgerald wrote Winter Dreams in 1922, which followed the youth of a man named Dexter Green. The story mentions Dexter’s “winter dreams” which are to become a professional golfer and more wealthy; he does seem to realize these dreams at times, but often is not aware of them. Fitzgerald shows the importance of dreams in America, …show more content…
At the beginning of the story, Dexter starts out as a caddie, “working for pocket money” (1558) though he did not have financial troubles since his father “owned the second best grocery store in Dillard” (1558). One thing that Dexter wanted was to become a professional in golf and he wanted to beat Mr. T. A. Hedrick. He even says it is one of his dreams that, “He became a golf champion and defeated Mr. T. A. Hedrick in a marvelous match played over a hundred times in the fairways of his imagination” (1559). An even more important dream that Dexter has, however, is to become wealthier than he already is, “He wanted not association with glittering things and glittering people – he wanted the glittering things himself” (1561). He is never satisfied with the things that he has. Ultimately, this desire to obtain wealth is the dream that Dexter is chasing throughout the