"The Dead" is an intriguing story, mixing the joy of an annual Christmas party with serious reflection and several small but significant incidents that the reader eventually sees the importance. Mortality seems to be the key part of the story, beginning with its title. The story is set in winter, which is holiday season. Once we are first introduced to Gabriel Conroy at the Christmas party, most of the conversation is small talk, or short moments of family drama. For example, Aunt Kate and Julia worried about Freddy making a scene from being “screwed” which seems to be an annual occurrence year after year. There are also key moments of genuine emotion and connection between loved ones, such as Gabriel's moving speech, which brings his aunts to tears.
But the evening is interrupted by small disturbances that leave the reader captivated. The first is Gabriel's talk with Lily. Without meaning to, he patronizes the young girl, saying that “she'll be having her own wedding soon.” Lily's response: “The men that is now is only all palaver and what they can get out of you.” The incident disturbs Gabriel deeply, and it is the first fail attempt of communication in the story and blames his high-status education for not being able to talk to servants. Instead, he leaves her a tip symbolizing that he relies on the comfort of money.
The miscommunication continues. When he chats with Miss Ivors, he takes her light reprimanding very personally. Irish politics come up: she accuses him lightly of being less than loyal to Ireland, calling him a “West Briton,” a derogatory term for an Irishman not sufficiently committed to independence and still loyal to Great Britain. Miss Ivors’ character is actually quite appealing, apparently intelligent, well-educated, and without spite. Their conversation emphasizes that an Irish party would not be Irish without reference to Irish politics. At the end of the conversation, he feels that Miss Ivors has made a fool of him, but her grace and good spirit would seem to suggest that her intentions were innocent.
The premise of miscommunication and even isolation really comes out in full swing after the party. Gabriel spends the ride home thinking of his wife and their many happy moments together. But he soon learns that she has been thinking of a deceased love, Michael Furey, she had in her youth. Though married, they spent the ride home in completely different worlds, having the sense of isolation. He had hoped for a great night with his wife, but their night ends with Gretta sleeping and Gabriel admitting that he has never felt so strongly for a woman that he would die for her, as Michael Furey did. He becomes furious with the thought of the idea that another man loved his wife, but then a sort of sadness comes over him when he realized that he has never felt such a powerful emotion. Maybe, this is when he realizes that life is too short and the people who often live these full and happy lives are the living instead of merely walking through life as a shadow, like himself, and have the living carry your memory once you are gone.
Joyce joins the premise of isolation and mortality to tie the end of the story together. Gabriel feels himself becoming one of the deceased: “His soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead.” The snow, falling upon "all the living and the dead" becomes a metaphor for isolation, the inability to know others, even those with whom we are intimate. Ultimately, the story ends with the possibility that Gabriel had an epiphany and might change the way he lives his life but one can only assume he will join the dead and not be remembered.
-Lauren St Pierre
I agree that miscommunication is definitely and underlying theme in this story. Towards the beginning almost everything Gabriel says doesn't come out the way he intended. The best example of this is his conversation with Lily, which you already pointed out. He then starts questioning the quotation in his speech and whether the people at the party will understand what he is trying to communicate.
ReplyDeleteAnother major theme I noticed in this story is the idea that Gabriel seems to be struggling with his identity. His aunts aren't extremely rich but he is more educated than those at the party, so he is concerned about the lines in his speech. Later with Mrs. Ivors he becomes very offended at being called a West Briton even though at the end of their conversation he declares that he is sick of his own country. Again while preparing for his speech he wants to somewhat insult Mrs. Ivors and does it at the expense of his aunts by saying he didn't care that "his aunts were only two ignorant women." When he actually gives the speech he praises them and their niece as the "Three Graces". All of these conflicts in his character seem to come together when he has that final epiphany with his wife. While making their way to their room, he claims he can barely contain his urge to be with her but when he learns that she had another love he comes to the realization that he had never had the urge to die for someone because he loved them so much. I think this causes him to realize that he may not be who he thinks he is or feels what he thought he did.
I agree totally with what Mia is saying. I think that miscommunication is a key part in the story, but I feel that the main theme in this story is the Gabriel searching for his true identity. I think that his education has changed the way he looks at things in life. The first time I noticed this was on pages 435 and 436 when Lily puts three syllables in his name and smiled as if to somewhat disapprove of her speech. Also people at the party, especially Miss Ivors, kept calling him a West Briton which he took major offense to. Most of the time when people take offense to things at such great measures it's usually because they know part of it is true. Gabriel knows however that for someone of his culture being called a West Briton is almost an insult.
ReplyDeleteI agree completely about miscommunication throughout the story. The one part in the coat room with Lily and Gabriel was confusing. I did not understand why he was asking her her age and talking about her having a wedding soon. It seemed a little creepy to me, unless it was just small talk. If so, I definitely did not pick up on that. He also did not see why she could not take his money and thought her response was rude, which is another sign of miscommunication.
ReplyDeleteYou did great!
ReplyDeleteI do believe that the overall theme of the story is that Gabriel struggles with his identity. I think many of us do this at some point in our life.
I thought it was kind of odd at first too that he was asking such personal questions of Lily but then it mentions that he has known her since she was a small child.
I think he struggles with his place since he is an educated man. When his wits are matched by Mrs. Ivors, I think it makes him rather uncomfortable to be the center of attention.
I also think that he forgets sometimes that everyone doesn't think the same as him; that others have had their own experiences and have formed their own opinions. This is how he offends people. It's also odd to me that he and his wife have been together so long and he has never gotten to her past. That makes him seem a little self-absorbed and now he realizes that he didn't take the time to get to know her.
I do think that Gabriel does have a social awkwardness that Joyce best exemplifies in his "small-talk" conversations in the story. This gracelessness Gabriel exhibits is one way that Joyce shows the reader that although he is well-round (chooses to converse with the "help" despite the class difference), possessing a substantial educational background (Writes for a well-known newspaper, went to a university and was a teacher) and generally is a good man (aunts asks him to shield the "drunk" from the other socialites and carve the goose), he does not have a role for himself and is uncomfortable in is own skin. When his conversation with Mrs. Ivors takes an uncalculated turn, he flounders and does not know how to respond. He retreats into the shell of himself like a child would. This is also shown when he wishes to "master" his wifes feelings. Instead of going to her to comfort her or even making the feelings that she expresses to him about her or even their marriage, he makes it about himself (insert three year old tantrum). A husband should know his wife well enough to not feel the need to control her (actions, thoughts, feelings, etc) and be able to guide her, in an appropriate way, the he desires. So yes his identity is a mystery to himself, a sad realization he comes to by the end of the tale. Also his epiphany is sad and very revealing with flickers of hope,as he explains his realization that he is living in a plane where the dead and the living both dwell. How morbid! Hopefully he and his wife can both turn away from the bright light and rejoin the rest of us in the land of the living!
ReplyDeleteI thought that Gabriel was incredibily insecure and immature. The comment that revealed these traits about Gabriel was when he was about to give the speech at the Christmas party, on page 445, it says "It unnerved him to think that she would be at the supper-table, looking up at him while he spoke with her critical quizzing eyes. Perhaps she would not be sorry to see him fail at his speech. An idea came to his mind and gave him courage. He would say, alluding to Aunt Kate and Aunt Julia."
ReplyDeleteAlong with everybody else I agree that miscommunication is a key pattern that is constant throughout the story. Another example of this miscommunication or misunderstanding that hasn't been mentioned is when him and his wife are back at the hotel talking about Michael Furey. In the middle of page 461, Gabriel says, "Perhaps that was why you wanted to go to Galway with that Ivors girl?" he said coldly. And then she says, "He is dead." It seems that at first he feels angry or maybe a little jealous of this guy that loved his wife before him. And then she just bluntly says that he's dead. At that point Gabriel is probably thinking, "Oh crap, I'm an idiot." Because later on the same page it says, "Gabriel felt humiliated of his irony..."
ReplyDeleteAnd although I agree that most of the story shows Gabriel struggling with his identity, I also picked up on something else that could be something the author was trying to convey to the reader. Towards the end of the story on page 463, it says, "Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, then fade and wither dismally with age." In my opinion, the main theme seems to be about living life to the fullest. Although Gabriel has lived a much longer life, he even feels that Michael lived his life full of a passion that Gabriel has never felt. At the bottom of that same page, it says "He had never felt like that towards any woman, but he knew that it must be love."
Unfortunately for Gabriel this feeling that Michael may have lived his wife more than him will probably never go away. Hopefully this is not foreshadowing that he will feel an obligation to also prove his love to his wife by risking his life for her. Hopefully by hearing that sad story he will, like Lauren said, change the way he lives for the better.