F. Scott Fitzgerald's Winter Dreams is in many ways similar to the all time classic book and film Bridges of Madison County. The stories plot both consist of two people falling in love, both with convictions that hold them back until finally breaking their own hearts. Dexter's love for Judy is intensely overpowering and despite the outcome he will endure what it takes to love her. In the end, he suffers from a broken heart and alone. In comparison, Francesca the main character falls in love with another man besides her husband one weekend while her husband is gone away. They spend four days together and her love for him is real enough to make her leave her family. However, despite the pain and confusion she decides to stay behind with her family and let him go. She spends all her years lost in love with Robert Kincade the lost traveler who happened upon her home.
             Dexter goes through life day by day feeling something missing as with Francesca. Although, both characters parallel each other by loving someone they can never be with; they also differ. Francesca stays with her family and endures anguish for the rest of her life because it is the right thing to do. Dexter in contrast does not care of the right thing to do and pursues Judy meanwhile breaking hearts along the way. Fitzgerald writes, "So he tasted the deep pain that is reserved only for the strong, just as he had tasted for a little while the deep happiness p.113". He caused himself so much pain to love someone who didn't love him back. She created a weakness inside him yet he did nothing to cure it only asked for more. In the final moments of Bridges, Franscesca and Robert are deciding if she should go with him or stay behind; Robert Kincade says solemnly "this kind of certainty comes only but once in a lifetime".
             My focus was drawn to the intolerable feelings of love these two stories share and why they
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