The Dead is a short story written by James Joyce. It belong to Dubliners, a collection of short stories. 

The story is set at the feast of the Epiphany on January 6, which celebrates the manifestation of Christ’s divinity to the Magi. Kate and Julia organized this annual party and they particularly wait the arrive of their favorite nephew, Gabriel Conroy, and his wife, Gretta. Gabriel and Gretta are the two main characters, and in the end of the story they will experience an epiphany, a sudden revelation of meaning. An intelligent reader can understand that behind Gabriel's name, there's a meaning. In religion Gabriel is an Archangel who typically server as a messenger to human from God. During the party Gabriel must give a speech; he considers himself superior then the other people at the party, and all the guests are waiting for him. So he is an important person, very well-read.

At the end of the party, while Gabriel and her wife are going down the stairs, Gretta hears a song and she remembers Michael Furey, his first boyfriend, who was   terribly sick and unable to see her. Despite being bedridden, when it came time for her to leave Galway, Michael travelled through the rain to Gretta. While he was waiting for her, he died under the rain.

At the hotel, when Gretta confesses to Gabriel that she was thinking of her first love, he becomes furious at her and himself, realizing that he has no claim on her. At this point Gabriel experience an epiphany, he understands that his relationship with her wife was never strong and deep.  Besides reflecting on his passionless life, he realizes that life is short, and person who leaves the world like Michael Furey, with great passion, in fact live more fully than people like himself.

During his speech at the dinner he insisted on the division between the past of the dead and the present of the living. Gabriel now recognizes, after hearing that Michael Furey’s memory is still life, that such division is false.

Looking  out of his hotel window, he sees the falling snow, and he imagines it covering Michael Furey’s grave just as it covers those people still living, as well as the entire country of Ireland. The snow is reassuring and has the meaning of regeneration.