The Dead is a short story written by James Joyce. It belongs to Dubliners, a collection of stories published in 1914.

The story is set in Dublin: during the late 1800s, Ireland merged with the United Kingdom of Great Britain with Scotland. Many Irish people immigrated to places like Dublin to free themselves of the social inequalities in their homeland. Joyce’s “The Dead” shows the lifestyles of the Irish middle class in Dublin in the late 1800s.

Reading the title, the reader expects the story will be about death, but the reader can’t know if “the Dead” refers to a single person(or concept)or more than one.

The story is structured into three main sequences taking place in interior places so that the psychological dimension is central: a house and a hotel.

“The Dead” is without a plot: the characters attend a dinner party in which the author focuses the attention on Irish tradition also providing elements of discussion between characters. The most significant part is Gabriel’s epiphany: In the dialogue between Gabriel and Gretta at the hotel, he discovers that his wife had a lover before him, who died for love. The protagonist reflects on his life: life and death are two different forms of existing in one’s mind because you can stay alive but if you are not aware about what happens around you, your soul is dead.

Discussing about the narrative techniques and language, the author alternates dialogical and narrative parts. The narrator is a third person omniscient narrator, in fact he knows also past events of character’s private life. James Joyce uses the interior monologue and symbolism(the metaphor)to convey precise state of mind of his characters: in particular in the final part Joyce communicates all Gabriel’s though process. Through symbolism and the interior monologue, the author makes his readers feel as if they are a part of the Irish identity during the late 1800s.

The language used is precise: physical descriptions are meticulous, and it allows the reader to identify him/herself with the protagonists, Gabriel Conroy and his wife Gretta.