Dexter's memories of the summer are idealized and unrealistic. For example, when he is young and working as a golf caddy, he dreams during the winter of a fantastical summer in which he is a golf champion. In these dreams, he owns a Pierce-Arrow, a very high-end car, and is a well-respected member of the golf club--so well respected, in fact, that he is followed by an adoring crowd who also admire his diving ability with mouths open in wonder. Years later, he also succumbs to a kind of summer fantasy when he meets Judy Jones again and thinks that he can make her be faithful to him. During this time, he is wildly unrealistic about who Judy is and even asks her to marry him, which never happens. He loses his sense of reality and thinks of his relationship with her in the same idealized way he dreamed of becoming a rich golf champion when he was a boy.

In "Winter Dreams," are Dexter's memories of the summer accurate or idealized?

Dexter is driven to have what he cannot attain. He is both enamored with the young beauty in front of him and repulsed by her self-absorption. The reader must allow Dexter some room to shape his recollections. He is interpreting the value of the quest he will give himself. He is an unreliable narrator to himself as well as to the reader. We must remember that a public relationship with a girl like this is a symbol of his entrance into the most exclusive class. Perhaps the most unreliable part of the story isn't descriptions of beauty, but her interest in him.