'The Dead' (1914) is a short story by Irish writer James Joyce, who lived from 1882-1941 and is best known for his pioneering of Modernist literary techniques, such as stream-of-consciousness. While we do see 'The Dead' has some evidence of this Modernist experimentation, this story is most remarkable for its ruminations on Irish culture and history and its insights about the trials of growing old.
Story Setting
'The Dead,' along with the other stories in Joyce's Dubliners, takes place in Dublin, Ireland, in the early 20th century. It is winter, and the characters are attending a holiday party at the home of the main characters' aunts. At the end of the story, the setting shifts to a cab ride through the early morning snow and then to a hotel room where the protagonist and his wife will be spending the night.
Principal Characters
Gabriel Conroy is the principal point-of-view character and the nephew of the party's hostesses. He is a professor and intellectual, and, in his middle age, is suspicious of the younger generation's radical politics.
Gretta Conroy is Gabriel's wife and the object of his sincerest affections.
Molly Ivors is a younger guest at the party who leaves early. She espouses the younger generation's politics, and for this reason doesn't get along with Gabriel.
Miss Kate and Miss Julia are Gabriel's aunts and the hostesses of the party. While healthy now, they have grown quite old, and Gabriel worries they will die soon.
Michael Furey doesn't physically appear in the story, but he plays an important role. He is the young man who years ago was in love with Gretta Conroy and died of exposure from coming to see her on a rainy night.
Lily is Miss Kate's and Miss Julia's servant.
Analysis
"The Dead" is the most famous story in Dubliners, and is widely recognized as one of the finest short stories in the English language. Joyce conferred on it the honor of the final position, and made it three times as long as the average Dubliners tale. His fine range, acute psychological insights, and perfect control of his art are all on display here.
Many of the main themes are touched on. We see glimpses of poverty, in the character of Lily, whose family is achingly poor. We see the political divisions in Ireland in the conversation between Miss Ivors and Gabriel. We also have criticism of the church, as Aunt Kate speaks bitterly of the decision of Pope Pius X to exclude women from all church choirs; Aunt Julia had dedicated a great deal of her life to working in the choir, and her thanks for it is the Pope's appallingly sexist decision. Aunt Kate says repeatedly that of course the Pope must be right about everything, but she cannot help but think it was ungrateful. We see in her the inability to reconcile what she knows to be wrong with the indoctrinated Catholic conviction that the Pope cannot be wrong.
Central themes are mortality and isolation. But "The Dead" is a story with much joy in it. The scene here is far from bleak; poverty has little place in this story, and many financially comfortable characters are celebrating in the midst of the holiday season. As is appropriate for this time of year, we see loving interaction between friends and family, and people of different generations.
Mortality is a key part of the story, beginning with its title. The tale is set in winter, which is both holiday season and the season of death. The two old aunts in their old house become symbols for the onslaught of time; Aunt Kate can't even hear Gabriel's speech. Gabriel knows that one day, in the not-too-distant future, he will return to the house for his aunts' funerals. And of course, there is the dead boy Gretta remembers because of a song. Much has been made of the fact that Dubliners is framed by two stories dealing with death. The two stories, in fact, could easily switch their titles. But while "The Sisters" maintains one note and holds it well, "The Dead" is a far richer tale, mixing the joy of the occasion with somber reflection and several small but significant incidents, the importance of which is recognized gradually by the reader.
Joyce's ability to write a party scene is at full strength in this tale. Most of the conversation in the story is small talk, or short moments of family drama (Aunt Kate and Julia worried about Freddy making a scene in his drunkenness, for example). There are also key moments of heartfelt emotion and connection between loved ones, such as Gabriel's moving speech, which brings his dear old aunties to tears.
But the evening is punctuated by small disturbances that linger in the reader's mind. The first is Gabriel's talk with Lily. Without meaning to, he condescends to the young girl, saying with sweetness that she'll be having her own wedding soon. Lily's response: "The men that is now is only all palaver and what they can get out of you" (178). Her words are scathing, all the more so because we know that Gabriel did, in fact, notice the girl's physical beauty. The incident disturbs Gabriel deeply, and it is the first failure of communication in the story. What should have been pleasant became quickly unpleasant, and Gabriel begins to worry that his speech will sound too lofty to his audience's ears: "They would think that he was airing his superior education. He would fail with them just as he had failed with the girl in the pantry" (179).
The miscommunication continues. When he chats with Miss Ivors, he takes her light chiding very personally. Irish politics come up yet again: she accuses him lightly of being less than loyal to Ireland. Although such sentiments often come from unsavory characters in Joyce's works, Miss Ivors is actually quite appealing, apparently intelligent, well-educated, and without malice. Their conversation emphasizes that an Irish party would not be Irish without reference to Irish politics: note that Gabriel looks around with concern, lest anyone should hear his opinions. At the end of the conversation, he feels that Miss Ivors has made a fool of him, but her lightness and good spirit would seem to suggest that her intentions were innocent.
But the theme of isolation and miscommunication really comes out in full force after the party. Gabriel spends the journey home thinking of his wife and their many happy moments together. But he soon learns that she has been thinking of a love she had in her girlhood. Though married, they spent the ride home in completely different worlds. Gabriel's thoughts were only his own, and he and his wife could not have been farther apart. He had hoped for a tender night, but their evening ends with Gretta sleeping and Gabriel admitting that he has never felt so strongly for a woman that he would die for her, as Michael Furey did.
The separation of death becomes a metaphor for the separation between the living. Joyce joins the themes of isolation and mortality. Gabriel feels himself becoming one of the deceased: "His soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead" (224). The snow, falling upon "all the living and the dead" becomes a metaphor for isolation, the inability to know others, even those with whom we are intimate. Ironically, the snow also functions as a symbol for the death that comes indiscriminately. Opaque where it lies "thickly drifted" over objects in cities and distant graveyards, it masks all behind a shield of white, isolating each thing, while also reminding Gabriel that the same mortality awaits all beings.
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