Near the beginning of the story, when introducing the 11-year-old Judy, the narrator uses an oxymoron:
The little girl who had done this was eleven—beautifully ugly as little girls are apt to be who are destined after a few years to be inexpressibly lovely and bring no end of misery to a great number of men. The spark, however, was perceptible.
When the narrator describes how Judy was “beautifully ugly,” they are using an oxymoron in order to capture the way that, as a prepubescent girl, Judy has not yet fully come into her looks. As the narrator states, Judy is “destined after a few years to be inexpressibly lovely” but, at the moment, is not yet there. This passage is also an example of foreshadowing, specifically via the narrator’s statement that girls like Judy are “destined” to “bring no end of misery to a great number of men.” This proves to be very true as the story goes along and Judy juggles dozens of men, hurting many of them in the process, including the protagonist Dexter.
It is notable that the narrator describes a “spark” being perceptible in Judy. While Dexter grows up and is able to use his particular “spark” as fuel to become successful businessmen, Judy, as a woman in a sexist society, is limited to to using her fiery energy to attract men. While some readers may view Judy’s romantic later entanglements as manipulative, Fitzgerald demonstrates that this is the only area of her life in which she can funnel her energy and ambition.
