Dexter Green and Jody Jones
Scott Fitzgerald only lived for forty-four years but he was known as one of America’s famous writers. In his lifetime he published four novels and many short stories; his last novel, The Love of the Last Tycoon, was published posthumously. The story “Winter Dreams,” is a story of two young people, Dexter Green and Jody Jones. Jody is a terrible beautiful girl who goes from one man to another; she is engaged several times but never for long and she is Dexter first and last love. Dexter falls in love with Jody and no matter how many men she courts she could always come back to him and he would have her. In the end Jody marries but the marriage is an unhappy one; when Dexter hears of it, he cries for his loss and realizes that as long as he lives he will always love Jody. In this Story “Winter Dreams,” Scott Fitzgerald, belabor the theme of unrequited love.
At age fourteen Dexter falls in love with eleven years old Jody, the first time he truly sees her, when she appears on the golf course with her nurse. Dexter stood perfectly still, his mouth slightly ajar”Now he remembered having seen her several times the year before in bloomers” (please put the number in, I am using the internet). This is a foreshadowing of the impact Judy would have on his life. For the next nine to ten years nothing is heard of Dexter other than the fact that he went to university. Dexter has the discipline and the drive to become successful and he does but he discovers Jody again and his life becomes an emotional tumult. “It did not take him many hours to decide that he had wanted Judy Jones ever since he was a proud, desirous little boy”(page #) Dexter lives like the rich, dresses like the rich, to prove his success he takes rooms at the golf club and although he could have his pick of other women, he is drunk on Jody Jones, a shallow unhappy girl. “Succeeding Dexter's first exhilaration came restlessness and dissatisfaction. The helpless ecstasy of losing himself in her was opiate rather than tonic” ( page). Dexter is his own worst enemy, he acknowledges that he can never be happy with Jody because she is never going to settle down with him yet, he cannot love anyone else. Even when he reasons that Irene will be a faithful wife someone he can count on as a wife and a good mother to raise the children he hopes to have, “He knew that Irene would be no more than a curtain spread behind him, a hand moving among gleaming tea-cups, a voice calling to children” ( page.) Jody returns and bats her pretty eyes and he is putty in her hands again. Dexter runs away again, he goes into the army but wherever he runs Jody runs with him.
Jody is a beautiful spoil young girl; she is fashioned by the men who see her as a perfect woman, she has beauty and she has class; but no dept. She thrives on the attention of her suitors and it gives meaning to her life. “Whenever one (the men) showed signs of dropping out through long neglect, she granted him a brief honeyed hour, which encouraged him to tag along for a year or so longer. Judy made these forays upon the helpless and defeated without malice, indeed half unconscious that there was anything mischievous in what she did”(page ). Jody does not become the person she is the moment she becomes an adult, she grew into that person, as a child she is a snob, she addresses Dexter the first time she sees him as “boy.” only eleven years old, and he is older than she. Unfortunately, she turns into an adult thinking that the world is at her feet; and that is the reason she treats men the ways she does. It gives her pleasure to take Dexter from Irene, and it strokes her ego knowing that she could have Dexter whenever she wants him. She is immature and cruel but her deeds catch up with her; she falls hard for her husband who treats her badly; for the first time in her live she cannot use her beauty as a weapon. " He treats her like the devil. Oh, they're not going to get divorced or anything. When he's particularly outrageous she forgives him. In fact, I'm inclined to think she loves him. She was a pretty girl when she first came to Detroit" ( page). Her beauty has no effect on her husband, as far as her husband is concerned, her beauty has waned, after all the lives she plays with she endures and deserves a loveless marriage.
As is typical of Fitzgerald he writes about life. He uses Dexter and Jody to show the unfairness of life. Jody could not love Dexter although Dexter would have given his life for her. Regretfully, when she finally falls in love she loves someone who does not appreciate her love and that is the way of life, it pays just wages.
