Motif in Winter Dreams

Rompers, a type of sports clothing, are a one-piece outer garment consisting of a top and shorts. Judy is again associated with the color pink, part of the story’s color motif.

Gold, blue, and scarlet (a shade of pink) continue to develop the color motif in the story. When Judy encounters Dexter and his party on the golf course, she wears a blue gingham dress edged in white, and the “feverish warmth” of the color in her cheeks suggests shades of pink, suggesting youth and vitality.

Wearing lipstick the color of scarlet, Judy is again associated with the pink color motif in the story.

In keeping with the color motif in the story, Judy is again dressed in blue.

Dexter’s conflicting feelings regarding the upper class with its generations of inherited wealth—“old money”—reflect the class divide in American society that is introduced at the beginning of the story and developed throughout the text. Dexter is “newer and stronger” than the privileged young men of the upper class in that he will build his own fortune; however, as an outsider, he still admires and romanticizes the upper class and hopes that his children will rise above his social station.

The description of the city’s downtown area with pool halls and saloons filled with “dirty yellow light” contrasts with the world Dexter has inhabited while pursuing Judy Jones: Sherry Island, Mortimer Jones’s mansion, and the University Club. The contrast echoes the description of class differences introduced at the story’s beginning and emphasizes the affluence of the upper class.

The passage further develops the color motif in the story. Here Judy is associated with gold, as she previously has been associated with pink. She not only wears a gold dress, but she is also dressed in gold from head to toe. A precious metal, gold gleams and glitters in the light and has connotations of riches, extravagance, and rare beauty—qualities attributed to Judy through the motif. Describing Judy as an “enameled doll” objectifies her, suggesting that to Dexter she has always been a prize to possess.

The color motif associating Judy with pink and gold throughout the story creates the symbolism in the conclusion. The sun’s “sinking” symbolizes Dexter’s losing Judy once again and forever, for she will no longer live in his memories as the girl she had been. The “shades of pink and gold” in the sunset are “lovely,” but they are “dull,” no longer representative of Judy’s youth and vitality of the past.