Compare and contrast how “Winter Dreams” and “The Chrysanthemums” explore the theme of love in the modern world. Give examples from the works to prove each of your points. How do the stories differ in tone and style? How are they similar? Support your thoughts and ideas with appropriate resources. Your initial post should be 150 to 200 words long.

               Both “Winter Dreams” and “The Chrysanthemums” explore the theme of love with a certain quality of dissatisfaction and with an emphasis on that which is unachievable to the main characters Dexter and Elisa.  The tone of each story reflects this quality, although the quality seems to be more of a passing fancy in Steinbeck’s “The Chrysanthemums”; whereas in Fitzgerald’s “Winter Dreams” the unobtainable is almost a lifelong obsession of the main character Dexter.  Thus, the tone utilized by Fitzgerald seems to be a stronger sense of unease throughout the work.  This feeling is summarized as the war begins just after Dexter’s terminated engagement with Judy Jones and the subsequent relinquishing of his laundry business.  Fitzgerald wrote of Dexter, “He was one of those young thousands who greeted the war with a certain amount of relief, welcoming the liberation from webs of tangled emotion” (p. 1844).

               The unobtainable in “Winter Dreams” is of course the youthful and untamable beauty of Judy Jones.  In contrast, the unobtainable in “The Chrysanthemums” is more of a romanticized sentiment of independence desired by Elisa, which becomes personified in the character of the vagabond peddler.  Elisa’s words reflect this in the statement, “I’ve never lived as your do, but I know what you mean.  When the night is dark- why, the stars are sharp pointed, and there’s quiet.  Why you rise up and up!  Every pointed star gets driven into your body” (p. 1873).

                There is a reverence and appreciation for natural beauty in the descriptive style used by both authors.  It is present in Fitzgerald’s descriptions of Judy Jones and of the golf club and Lake Erminie and in Steinbeck’s descriptions of the Salinas Valley countryside.  Steinbeck, in particular, begins with the stunning description, “On the broad, level land floor the gang plows bit deep and left the black earth shining like metal where the shares had cut” (p. 1869).  Both authors use the idyllic natural surroundings as a backdrop with which to emphasize the contrasting inner discontent of the main characters.  Both Dexter and Elisa suffer the disappointing realization of the futility of their vain longings.  For Dexter, it happens when he realizes that the untamable spirit of Judy Jones has indeed finally settled down, and that she has somewhat lost the youthful beauty which he had worshipped for so long.  Dexter laments the loss of his romantic ideal with the statement, “Long ago there was something in me, but now that thing is gone…..That thing will come back no more” (p. 1845).  Likewise, Elisa realizes that the peddler she had seen as a kindred spirit was no more than a common vagabond swindler.  She assumed he was appreciative of the beauty of nature and of the value of independence and inner strength as she was, but she is forced to forfeit these notions when she realizes his interest was only in obtaining the fifty cents as compensation for his work and the pot in which she had placed the Chrysanthemums.

                In both works the authors seem to illustrate the peculiar dichotomy in modern society wherein people who seemingly have every opportunity for happiness (as portrayed in the characters of Dexter and Elisa) still struggle with a quality of dissatisfaction that disrupts their happiness.  Perhaps the both authors see this as an inevitable trait of human nature, whether transient, as with Steinbeck’s Elisa, or more permanent, as with Fitzgerald’s Dexter.  In the context of the time period, both authors seem to say that “everything is never enough.”  This seems true, although to differing extents, with the middle-class Elisa and with the well-to-do Dexter.

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