Winter Dreams

“He became a golf champion and defeated Mr. T. A. Hedrick in a marvelous match played a hundred times over the fairways of his imagination, a match each detail of which he changed about untiringly—sometimes he won with almost laughable ease, sometimes he came up magnificently from behind. Again, stepping from a Pierce-Arrow automobile, like Mr. Mortimer Jones, he strolled frigidly into the lounge of the Sherry Island Golf Club—or perhaps, surrounded by an admiring crowd, he gave an exhibition of fancy diving from the springboard of the Erminie Club raft. Among those who watched him in open-mouthed wonder was Mr. Mortimer Jones.”

Dexter dreams of becoming a “golf champion” who not only fits in with members of high society but attracts their admiration. He compares himself to Mr. Mortimer Jones, Judy’s father, and envisions Mr. Mortimer Jones regarding him with “open-mouthed wonder.” Dexter clearly seeks to become “better” and “superior” to those around him. It is no surprise that after having these dreams and meeting Mr. Mortimer Jones’s daughter on the golf course, Dexter decides to quit his job as a caddy. Although his job as a caddy provided him with spending money, he would rather become a member of high society than cater to those who already belong there.

“He wanted not association with glittering things and glittering people—he wanted the glittering things themselves.”

The essence of Dexter’s winter dreams is not only to achieve wealth and high status but to win and “possess” Judy as his wife. Before Dexter meets Judy, he is willing to settle for mere association with the very rich through his job as a caddy. However, meeting Judy is a pivotal moment in which he becomes determined to possess “glittering things” by becoming a member of high society. The repeated use of the word “glittering” underscores Dexter’s obsession with wealth, exceptionalism, and Judy—all beautiful things that prove illusory.

“He made money. It was rather amazing. After college he went to the city from which Black Bear Lake draws its wealthy patrons. When he was only twenty-three and had been there not quite two years, there were already people who liked to say: ‘Now there’s a boy—’”

The response of the Black Bear Lake patrons to Dexter’s success hearkens back to Mr. Mortimer Jones’s admiration of Dexter’s caddying abilities and to 14-year-old Dexter’s “winter dreams” of earning the respect of the wealthy Sherry Island Golf Club patrons. Dexter has sought this type of admiration ever since he was a boy, and now that he has attained wealth, his winter dreams are beginning to reach fruition.

“The color in her cheeks was centered like the color in a picture—it was not a ‘high’ color, but a sort of fluctuating and feverish warmth, so shaded that it seemed at any moment it would recede and disappear. This color and the mobility of her mouth gave a continual impression of flux, of intense life, of passionate vitality—balanced only partially by the sad luxury of her eyes.”

Judy’s cheeks are lively and colorful as Judy exudes the glow and warmth of youth. The “warmth” of the color connects Judy with the warmth and thrill of summer and all the possibilities it brings. Images of motion and continuity are also present (“color and […] mobility,” “continual impression of flux,” “intense life,” “passionate vitality,” etc.), suggesting energy and liveliness. However, the “shade” and “feverish[ness]” evoke winter, illness, and ultimately the reality that youth and life itself are impermanent. Likewise, the “sad luxury of her eyes” not only foreshadows Judy’s fate but also emphasizes how Dexter associates Judy with material possessions, wealth, and “luxury.”

“The tune the piano was playing at that moment had been gay and new five years before when Dexter was a sophomore at college. They had played it at a prom once when he could not afford the luxury of proms, and he had stood outside the gymnasium and listened. The sound of the tune precipitated in him a sort of ecstasy and it was with that ecstasy he viewed what happened to him now. It was a mood of intense appreciation, a sense that, for once, he was magnificently attune to life and that everything about him was radiating a brightness and a glamour he might never know again.”

Dexter reminisces about his time at college, years before he would achieve success in the laundry business. While Dexter was in college, he did not have very much money and could not “afford the luxury of proms.” He recalls a moment in which he stood outside of the gymnasium to listen to a song. He now hears the same song while he basks in the moonlight in front of the Sherry Island Golf Course, where he used to caddy. He feels “ecstasy” and “intense appreciation” for all that he has achieved since his childhood and college years. However, within this sense of ecstasy is the sense of its end—the sense that such an “intense,” ecstatic feeling cannot last forever. Dexter’s appreciation may fade as he becomes more accustomed to wealth and society.

“Dexter raising himself on his arms was aware of a figure standing at the wheel, of two dark eyes regarding him over the lengthening space of water—then the boat had gone by and was sweeping in an immense and purposeless circle of spray round and round in the middle of the lake. With equal eccentricity one of the circles flattened out and headed back toward the raft.”

This description of Judy as “two dark eyes regarding [Dexter] over the lengthening space of water” is a dark omen of impending death and decay, particularly as it is followed by the boat “sweeping in an immense and purposeless circle of spray round and round in the middle of the lake.” The motion signifies Judy’s recklessness, aimlessness, and energy, as well as the cyclical nature of the seasons and of night and day. The fact that the circle flattens connotes a sudden cessation to the heightened energy just moments before, which foreshadows the inevitable end of Judy’s youth, beauty, and energy.

“Next evening while he waited for her to come downstairs, Dexter peopled the soft deep summer room and the sun-porch that opened from it with the men who had already loved Judy Jones. He knew the sort of men they were—the men who when he first went to college had entered from the great prep schools with graceful clothes and the deep tan of healthy summers. He had seen that, in one sense, he was better than these men. He was newer and stronger. Yet in acknowledging to himself that he wished his children to be like them he was admitting that he was but the rough, strong stuff from which they eternally sprang.”

Dexter daydreams about the “men who had already loved Judy Jones.” These are men he in some sense strives to be. They attend Ivy League schools, wear nice clothes, and are attractive. Dexter feels superior to them in having made his own success rather than inheriting it; he epitomizes everything the American dream purportedly is. He acknowledges, however, that he wishes his children to be “like them.” Dexter wishes to secure wealth for his descendants so that they will enjoy the prestige of being “old money.”

“When the time had come for him to wear good clothes, he had known who were the best tailors in America, and the best tailors in America had made him the suit he wore this evening. He had acquired that particular reserve peculiar to his university, that set it off from other universities. He recognized the value to him of such a mannerism and he had adopted it; he knew that to be careless in dress and manner required more confidence than to be careful. But carelessness was for his children. His mother’s name had been Krimslich. She was a Bohemian of the peasant class and she had talked broken English to the end of her days. Her son must keep to the set patterns.”

Dexter is self-conscious about his social status; his family is merely middle-class and his mother was an immigrant who “talked broken English to the end of her days.” Because of the precariousness of his social position, Dexter is “careful” to dress and act in keeping with his high social aspirations. This indicates the limitations of the American dream; even those who find material success struggle to attain social status. His hope that his children will be more “careless” speaks to the security that old money conveys.

“Succeeding Dexter’s first exhilaration came restlessness and dissatisfaction. The helpless ecstasy of losing himself in her was opiate rather than tonic.”

Dexter becomes dissatisfied once he realizes Judy is seeing other men and playing a “game” with them. He realizes that his fixation on her is harmful rather than helpful. Like an opiate, Judy is addictive and causes dependency.

“No disillusion as to the world in which she had grown up could cure his illusion as to her desirability. Remember that—for only in the light of it can what he did for her be understood.”

Dexter seems to recognize that his obsession with Judy is based on an illusion while remaining powerless to resist it. The narrator suggests that readers should keep this in mind before judging Dexter for “what he did for her”—that is, cheating on his fiancée and leaving her for Judy.

“Summer, fall, winter, spring, another summer, another fall—so much he had given of his active life to the incorrigible lips of Judy Jones. She had treated him with interest, with encouragement, with malice, with indifference, with contempt. She had inflicted on him the innumerable little slights and indignities possible in such a case—as if in revenge for having ever cared for him at all. She had beckoned him and yawned at him and beckoned him again and he had responded often with bitterness and narrowed eyes. She had brought him ecstatic happiness and intolerable agony of spirit. She had caused him untold inconvenience and not a little trouble. She had insulted him, and she had ridden over him, and she had played his interest in her against his interest in his work—for fun.”

This quotation reflects the inconsistency of Dexter’s relationship with Judy. While he invests a great deal in his relationship with her, Judy is careless and inconsistent in her affection toward Dexter, causing Dexter both “ecstatic happiness and intolerable agony of the spirit”—a combination that only enhances Dexter’s desire for her. Although Judy’s carefree actions are reckless and immature, they are nonetheless effective in maintaining Dexter’s interest.

“Judy Jones had left a man and crossed the room to him—Judy Jones, a slender enameled doll in cloth of gold: gold in a band at her head, gold in two slipper points at her dress’s hem. The fragile glow of her face seemed to blossom as she smiled at him. A breeze of warmth and light blew through the room. His hands in the pockets of his dinner-jacket tightened spasmodically. He was filled with a sudden excitement.”

The repetition of the word “gold” in the description of Judy’s headband and dress emphasizes Dexter’s habit of associating Judy with wealth and expensive possessions. That the “glow” of Judy’s face “blossoms” as she smiles and that “a breeze of warmth and light [blows] through the room” also connect Judy with spring or summer, underscoring her status as the object of Dexter’s “winter dreams.” The “sudden excitement” Dexter experiences when seeing Judy reflects the youth, beauty, and energy that Judy represents.

“The dream was gone. Something had been taken from him. In a sort of panic he pushed the palms of his hands into his eyes and tried to bring up a picture of the waters lapping on Sherry Island and the moonlit veranda, and gingham on the golf-links and the dry sun and the gold color of her neck’s soft down. And her mouth damp to his kisses and her eyes plaintive with melancholy and her freshness like new fine linen in the morning. Why, these things were no longer in the world! They had existed and they existed no longer.”

When Dexter finds that Judy is no longer the person she once was, his winter dreams are utterly “gone”: He cannot even recall them. The news, once known, cannot be unknown. The images that Dexter attempts to remember have a fragmented, dreamlike quality. They are characterized by the brightness and energy of summer, paired with luxury possessions such as “gingham” clothing and “fine linen,” but they do not form a cohesive whole.