"The Sun Also Rise"s and "Winter Dreams".

Twentieth Century Tarts It is inherent - people want what they cannot have, to the point of self-destruction. Brett Ashley wants a man that would never be able to satisfy her. Jake Barnes wants a woman he could never make happy. Dexter Green wants to conquer the unconquerable woman. Judy Jones wants the undivided attention of every eligible man on the east coast. What is it about these people that make them crave the unattainable? …

…happy life with the kind of man that would have treated them better than they deserved. Both Fitzgerald's "Winter Dreams" and Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises are stories of self-medication and self-destruction. Both are cases where one tries to medicate one's own emotional wounds with the recognition and validation that comes by attaining the unattainable. All the while, this constant striving for the impossible just results in blindness to one's actually surroundings, and ultimately self-destruction.