Winter Dreams Themes

In our U.S. History Shmoop learning guide on the 1920s, we talk about the huge rise in consumer culture at this stage of the twentieth century. Well, "Winter Dreams" was published in 1922, right at...

Dexter strongly associates money with love in "Winter Dreams." He thinks that if he has money, he can win the love of Judy Jones. One tiny problem: he doesn't get that having money might somehow re...

Dexter is not ambitious just for the sake of making tons of money. The narrator of "Winter Dreams" is careful to remind us that there is nothing "merely snobbish in the boy" (2.1). Dexter is an ide...

Dexter is a man of action, a self-made man who can change his life by going to an elite college and investing cleverly in business. But he can only do those things because he is, specifically, a ma...

Memory and the past are everywhere in "Winter Dreams." Heck, the "Tone" of the story is wistful and nostalgic. On the one hand, Dexter wants to forget his humble origins. He wants to leave behind t...