"The Dead" is the last chapter of Dubliners, by Joyce,  published in 1914 and it consists of fifteen short stories. the protagonists of the story are Gabriel and Gretta , husband and wife. The story opens with their attendance of the annual Christmas party given by Julia and Kat, Gabriel's aunts. There is a lot of eating, drinking and merry-making at the party, during which Gabriel meets several people. Miss Ivors, a nationalistic, irritating young woman, accuses him of being a "West Briton". This exchange makes Gabriel unsure of himself and spoils his party. He also makes a well-received speech but he considers his triumph superficial. Towards the end of the evening Gretta hears a song, which reminds her of a young man, Michael Fuery, who used to sing it and who died for her love when he was seventeen. When the party is over, Gabriel and his wife come back to their room in a hotel and he is consumed with physical passion but she is distant, because she is thinking about the song and Michael. Then she falls asleep and Gabriel watches her with affectionate pity and he meditates over the living and the dead. Looking out of the window he gradually falls asleep lulled by the snow which is covering everything. Gabriel's thoughts shif from present to past to future. In fact especially in the last part of the text there is an alternation of past simple verbs ( when Gabriel looks at Gretta, sleeping on the bed ), past perfect verbs ( when he recalls past events ) and conditional verbs ( when Gabriel thinks of the future when he will be partaking in his aunt's funeral ). This alternation makes the scene loose a precise temporal connotation. There is a third person narrator and the point of view is internal corresponding to Gabriel's eyes. The technique used is that of the stream of consciousness. The last part of "The dead" is a combination of realism and symbolism: for example a very powerful symbol is that of the snow which covers both Michael Fuery in his grave and the living ( so including Gabriel and Gretta ). The snow is like a frozen blanket which freezes the past of Gretta's relation with Michael, as well as her  present with Gabriel so it could be associated to the idea of transience. At the same time, the omnipresent snow, which is falling all over Ireland, can be considered as an inevitable destiny and for this reason it can be connected to death. In fact, especially the last part of the short story, is based on the effective antithesis between the metaphorical patterns of life and death, which are evident in the protagonist himself who seems to live a living-death with all his weakness and unspoken emotions, which prevent him from self-realization. Also this text contains an epiphany, which can be located in the point where Gabriel understands to be in love with his wife. But his lack of self-confidence paralyzes him, arising doubts connected to Gretta's past with Michael.