Just reading the title, the intelligent reader understands that the text is probably about death condition. Since “The Dead” is a post-modern text, the reader expectations are that Joyce gives a vision of death through his character minds allowing a deep reflection about their interiority.

Analyzing the structure, the reader understands that the text is organized with a mix of dialogues and narration. Probably, Joyce wants to underline the setting and the context with the narration and to give the keys to the narrator to learn characters’ interiorities carrying on their voices and thoughts.

The story is set in Dublin in 1904 during the Christmas period. It tells about a party made by two old sisters, Kate and Julia Markan, and their grandson Mary Jane. There are also other characters like Gabriel Conray and his wife Gretta, and the famous tenor Bartell D’Arey.

The central theme of “The Dead” is the paralysis. Indeed, throughout the story, there are not conflicts, no-one does nothing, and when someone says something that can create discussions, he/she is immediately stopped.

All the characters are presented under a positive light. Indeed, during the story, they are enjoying the party with ballads and songs. At the end of the story, Joyce overturns everything. The happiness prove by characters is only something apparent and, instead, they are empty and motionless. Furthermore, in the last sentences of the story, Gabriel, who is also the protagonist of the story, elaborates a new vision of life. Indeed, after his wife tells him the story of Michael Furey, a man she loved and who died at a young age, Gabriel says that people, that are feeling happiness now, are only run across a long travel to death.

Another important theme expressed in the text is the Epiphany, a sudden revelation that arises in a person from an apparently banal event and which detonates a new awareness about his or her existence. “The Dead” shows two epiphanys:·         The first one is about Gretta, who remembers Michael Furey from a song·         The second one is about Gabriel, who understands that he is only a shadow in his wife mind when she tells him Michael story