ANALYSIS OF JAMES JOYCE’S THE DEAD

                The Dead is a short story written by James Joyce as part of The Dubliners. From the title, we can expect the story will deal with the theme of death and particularly how people face death. The story is about a party during Christmas time in Dublin, attended by many well-educated people. Indeed1 during the party many musical activities take place. The reader's attention is focused on the main character Gabriel Conroy, perhaps the most learned of the guests, who has to give a speech.

Most of the story is about the relationships between Gabriel and the other guests during the party (e.g. Mr. Browne, Julia, Mrs. Ivors, Freddy Malins). After the party, in the hotel room with his wife, he has a revelation: her wife saddened hearing a song which reminded her of a past boyfriend, Michael Furey, who loved her so much that he died to see her. As a result Gabriel, realizes  that it is better to die young and burning with passion than being consumed by time. At the very end, there is an image of snow, falling over everyone, alive or dead.

       The story is written in two dominant techniques : the  interior monologue and symbolic realism. The first one is used to convey Gabriel’s stream of consciousness and his  gradual  awareness. This implies a third person unobtrusive eclipsed narrator that coincides with Gabriel. His awareness reaches its climax in the final epiphany. The epiphany consists in Gabriel’s final level of understanding : he reaches a deeper vision of himself, through this reflection on Michael Furey’s fate but also reconsidering his life and his attitudes and behaviour. He is not able to do anything important and cannot even love his wife as Michael did. The latter one and the use of precise images and descriptions cohere towards an inclusive overall  effect giving the text a multi-layered meaning on the connotative level. For example, the image of the falling snow implies a possible regeneration after Gabriel’s epiphany. Other images are used as symbols of Christian rituals and Irish traditions, and even the characters’ proper names has got a symbolic meaning (e.g. the archangels Michael and Gabriel).

                The short story offers a vision of existence through Gabriel’s newly-reached consciousness.

He realizes the meaninglessness of a life spent simply in learning  a lot:  he reflects about a Browning’s quotation which very few guests are able to understand. He also gets aware that so far his marriage with Gretta has been less emotional than Gretta's few months relationship with Michael Furey. The existential theme implies the death of both bodies and souls, but the final image of snow also does not necessarily exclude a regeneration.

Carlo Mauri

Daniele Sorrenti