Learning Paths » 5A Interacting
RZanutta - Analysis of the last part of "The Dead"
by - (2013-01-22)
Up to 5A - Dubliners and The Dead
This is the last part of the last chapter taken from “the Dead”, a short story that belongs to “The Dubliners”, a collection of short stories written by James Joyce. 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. In particular, “The Dead” appears to be a story about the annual Christmas party thrown by the Morkan sisters and their niece, Mary Jane. The story also is structured into three main sequences taking place in interior places so that the psychological dimension is central: a house and a hotel. In particular, the last part is set in a hotel after the final revelation from Gabriel’s wife: the song Mr. D'Arcy sung upset her before reminded her of a boy from her past, Michael Furey. He was Gretta's first love, and had died for her when he was only seventeen years old. Gabriel realized that he doesn't know his wife well at all, having been married to her for years and never hearing the story of Michael Furey before. I think the last part of the chapter is interesting because Gabriel has been self centered his whole life, only caring about himself, and now that he have to approach with his wife, he is unable to act. This aspect reveals that if you aren’t able to enter in a relationship with other people, you are dead. So the Dead proposed a reflection on the living, the death is in life. Discussing about the narrative techniques, “The Dead” represents a period of transition because it is an example of an attempt to connect symbolism and realism. In order to do that, there are two different narrators: if in the early part of the text there is a third person omniscient narrator, in the latest part the reader can recognize a third person omniscient narrator in which it seems as if he could read Gabriel’s mind. In conclusion, this is a typical element of modernism, in which the most important element is the binary attitude to interpret in order to search for the truth.