Winter Dreams | ‘‘Magnificently Attune to Life’’: The Value of ‘‘Winter Dreams’’
In the following essay excerpt, Clinton S. Burhans, Jr., focuses on the character of Dexter and the loss of his idealized view of Judy.
Men like Dexter Green do not cry easily; his tears and the language explaining them therefore point either to melodrama or to a complex significance. The difficulty lies in understanding precisely what Dexter has lost and whether its loss justifies the prostration of so strong and hard-minded a man. It seems clear that he is not mourning a new loss of Judy herself, the final extinction of lingering hopes; he had long ago accepted as irrevocable the fact that he could never have her. Nor has he lost the ability to feel deeply, at least not in any general sense: Fitzgerald makes it...
[The entire page is 3477 words long]
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