THE DEAD – Analysis

The Dead is the last part of James Joyce’s novel Dubliners. So it’s the last but not least: an epilogue of the previous dealt themes.

Setting:

-Time: It’s a Christmas party, so at the end of December. The cold season with the bare trees that reminds a dead man: cold and bare from his body.

-Places: The party take place in a familiar house full of relative: the usual and comfortable place, in which nothing is unknown. Then there’s the hotel which the stereotyped place for a two lovers’ sex night. Between these two places there’s the street to reach the hotel.

What happens: There’s a party organized by Kate, Julia and their niece Mary Jane. It takes part in their house and all the guests are waiting for Gabriel Conroy, Kate and Julia’s nephew (to who they have a mother behavior and admiration), who’s late.

Then he arrived with his wife, and he is anxious to hold his intellectual speech. During the supper there are someone who sings like Julia and other who dances, like Mrs. Ivors. Then the most dealt topics are religion and the music.

After the party, Gabriel and his wife Greta take a carriage in order to reach the hotel, but in the street Greta hears the dramatic Irish song “The Lass of Aughrim” and thinks. Because she’s moved by this motif, Gabriel becomes curios and at the hotel asks her all the reasons for that behavior. Coming out she was thinking about her previous boyfriend, Gabriel has an Epiphany.

The story ends with Gabriel who’s looking out the window the snow, while his wife is sleeping.

Characters:
Being a story full of character because takes place during a party, just few of them really emerge.

It’s like it was running around Gabriel Conroy. Indeed all are waiting for him because they admire his intelligence. At the beginning he appears like a really self-confident man, who’s thinking again and again at his speech changing the words because he doesn’t pursue them at his level. But he’s not so subjected by his mind as the other are. Indeed his self is in his wife’s hands: he’s always involving her and doing his best to make her happy. On the other hand, Greta is very sensitive, but not for him: she’s moved just thinking of her previous love. So, Gabriel is frustrated and is always feeling insufficient for her, that is giving totally himself for everything, but without any prize.

But he’s the apple of his aunts’ eyes because Gabriel mother’s younger sisters. For this reason he’s even the privilege of cutting the duck. Full of honors, he lacks in sensitivity: with the servant Lily he’s superficial doing stupid jokes and trying to resolve his mistakes by giving her some money.

Furthermore he is so great to control the drunker Freddy Malins, because he could ruin the party. Mrs. Ivors is one of his colleagues and he jokes ironically with her, who’s taking fun of the University professor.

Last but not least there’s the hero: Michael Furey, the one who’s love was so big to be worth dying for.

Main themes:

<!--[if !supportLists]-->-          <!--[endif]-->Gabriel’s epiphany: The man was shocked by his wife because she’s never been so sensible. So he’d have liked knowing why. She was thinking about Michael Furey, her boyfriend when she was seventeen who was seriously ill but stayed a lot under the rain, waiting for her coming back home. And in this waiting he died.

When Gabriel discovered her thoughts for Michael Furey and his heroic behavior, he started thinking. This point triggers his epiphany, so a moment in one’s life that makes he/she conscious of his/her life and which will change it. Gabriel was totally frustrated because he loved Greta with each part of his soul, and discovered her so alive feeling for Furey, brought him down. He understood he would have never been as important as that dead guy for his wife, even if he was doing his best for her (quoting her every time for everything and realizing all her wishes). Therefore he was a looser and the distances between the two character was stressed by their distance: Greta was quietly sleeping in the bed, while he was destroying himself next to the window.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->-          <!--[endif]-->The society’s opinion:  Kate and Julia are totally afraid of Freddie Malin’s behavior, so they control him strictly in order to not show that one guest is someone like him.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->-          <!--[endif]-->Who are men and women: From Gabriel and Lily’s dialogue comes out the Irish idea of men and women. Both of them has got a particular role in the society: the women are linked to the house, its care and after the adolescent they’ve to get marry; instead men are they who bring the money to earn a living.