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Compare And Contrast The Great Gatsby And Winter Dreams

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People who come from similar backgrounds may share similar experiences. This applies to the characters of Jay Gatsby and Dexter Green, who progress throughout The Great Gatsby and Winter Dreams to achieve the lifestyle that they always wanted, but fall short when it comes to love. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby and Winter Dreams. Both of these stories give an insight to what life was like in the 1920s. Jay Gatsby is one of the major characters in The Great Gatsby. He came from a poor family and eventually becomes extremely wealthy, but he isn’t satisfied without his past lover, Daisy Buchanan. Dexter Green worked as a golf caddy when he was young boy, which is where he met his love interest, Judy Jones. As he grows older and rises …show more content…

Jay Gatsby and Dexter Green possess similar character traits, they both come from new money and feel incomplete without somebody from their past.
The settings of “The Great Gatsby” and “Winter Dreams” both have an effect on their characters. Dexter Green lives in Minnesota and worked as a caddy at a prestigious golf club. He dreams of achieving the level of wealth that the golfers he once worked for possess. Jay Gatsby is originally from Minnesota and moved to West Egg in New York. He also dreams of fitting in with upper class society. “Mr. Hart-- one of the gray haired men who like to say “Now there’s a boy”-- gave him a guest card to the Sherry Island golf Club for a week-end… He did not consider it necessary to remark that he had once carried Mr. Hart’s bag over this same links.” (Winter Dreams 3). It is at this point where Dexter has completed the transformation from caddy boy to somebody with …show more content…

They both experienced a change which gave them a greater chance of attaining the person they always wanted. “He talked a lot about the past, and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was.”- (The Great Gatsby 110) Jay Gatsby had known Daisy Buchanan five years prior to when he moved to New York. They lost contact when Jay went to fight in the war, and Daisy decided to marry Tom. When Jay moved to West Egg, their paths crossed once again. “His heart turned over like the fly-wheel of the boat, and, for the second time, her casual whim gave a new direction in his life.” (Winter Dreams 4). When Dexter Green first met Judy Jones, he was part of a middle class family. After this Dexter went to college and became the owner of numerous laundromats. He came in contact with Judy for the second time, and felt as though he needed her in order to complete his transition from the middle class to becoming an upper class citizen. Despite reconnecting with the person who meant the most to them, the relationship didn’t last for either Jay Gatsby or Dexter

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