Winter Dreams vs The Great Gatsby

Gatsby and Dexter are the two characters in the novel that possibly have the most in common. Dexter and Gatsby live tremendously comparable lives in the stories regarding social class, background, and their love lives. Both characters grow up in the west living with families who do not have large quantities of wealt

h. Also, both characters try to use wealth to erase their pasts. Gatsby even goes to the extent of altering his name from James Gatz to James Gatsby. What brings these two even closer is their search for love that is just out of their reach. While Gatsby longs for Daisy, Dexter strives for Judy’s affection. Gatsby’s longing is revealed to the reader several times throughout the novel. There is perhaps no greater instance of this in the novel then when Gatsby is outside stretching his arms toward the green light at the edge of Daisy’s pier:

Judy’s amazing beauty is what attracts men to her. Her personality leaves something to be desired. Much like Judy, Daisy’s looks are what attract men to her. Daisy cares very little for other people and she relies on her looks and background to attract the opposite sex. Daisy can be described as a many things, such as a delicate flower. “Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a big passionate mouth, there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget” (Gatsby 9). This quote reveals just how beautiful Daisy is and how men who see her simply cannot forget her. In both of Fitzgerald’s works he uses many character similarities; however, he uses the themes of money and love so much in both stories they are virtually inter-changeable.

He [does] not start right. You see, if I’d thought of him as poor—well, I [am] mad about loads of poor men, and fully [intend] to marry them all. But in this case, I [have] not thought of him that way, and my interest in him [is] not strong enough to survive the shock. As if a girl calmly [informs] her fiancé that she [is] a widow. He might not object to widows, but—(Winter Dreams 593)

‘She [is] arrestingly beautiful. The color in her cheeks [are] centered like the color is a picture—It [is] not a “high” color, but a sort of fluctuating and fever

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