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What is the significance of the Jones' house at the end of Part IV?

F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the home of Mortimer Jones as a symbol at the end of Part IV of his short story “Winter Dreams.”


As an adolescent Dexter idolized all that Mortimer Jones stood for, and as a young man he longed for a relationship with Mortimer’s daughter, Judith Jones. Dexter planned his adult life to emulate the likes of Mortimer Jones as he worked to be rich, successful, and accepted by high society.


At...

F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the home of Mortimer Jones as a symbol at the end of Part IV of his short story “Winter Dreams.”


As an adolescent Dexter idolized all that Mortimer Jones stood for, and as a young man he longed for a relationship with Mortimer’s daughter, Judith Jones. Dexter planned his adult life to emulate the likes of Mortimer Jones as he worked to be rich, successful, and accepted by high society.


At the end of Part IV, Dexter is driving Judith Jones home. When he pulls up in front of the house he is struck by its architectural permanence. This permanence and rigid construction are the opposite of Judith’s temperament and fleeting beauty. The house is a permanent testament to the wealth and success Dexter aspired to, but in this scene he can feel the hollowness of the structure.  This portends the hollowness of Judith’s character as she pulled him away from a stable relationship back into his fantasy world of life with the beautiful yet fickle Judith, who was a flighty as a “butterfly.”



The dark street lightened, the dwellings of the rich loomed up around them, he stopped his coup_ in front of the great white bulk of the Mortimer Joneses house, somnolent, gorgeous,


drenched with the splendor of the damp moonlight. Its solidity startled him. The strong walls, the steel of the girders, the breadth and beam and pomp of it were there only to bring out the contrast with the young beauty beside him. It was sturdy to accentuate her slightness--as if to show what a breeze could be generated by a butterfly's wing.


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