The Dead-James Joyce

Superiority -> Self-consciousness

Liveliness/Importance -> Anger/Insignificance

Insignificance/Distance-> Indifference

''The smile passed away from Gabriel’s face. A dull anger began to gather again at the back of his mind and the dull fires of his lust began to glow angrily in his veins. ''

Themes:

Summary

''Her voice was veiled and sad. Gabriel, feeling now how vain it would be to try to lead her whither he had purposed, caressed one of her hands and said, also sadly: -And what did he die of so young, Gretta? Consumption, was it? –I think he died for me, she answered. A vague terror seized Gabriel at this answer as if, at that hour when he had hoped to triumph, some impalpable and vindictive being was coming against him, gathering forces against him in its vague world.''

• Intersection of life and death
• Silence/Lack of communication
• Betrayal
• Epiphany
• Paralysis

• Gabriel thinks of all the moments spent with Gretta
• She seems very distant and
• Gabriel can feel something is wrong
• Gretta confesses that she is thinking of her first love Michael
• She tells him she believes that Michael died for her
• Gabriel becomes very angry and feels insignificant to her

''Generous tears filled Gabriel's eyes. He had never felt like that himself towards any woman but he knew that such a feeling must be love.''

The Dead-James Joyce

Resume:

Epiphany:

-Never truly loved

-Alive yet dead

Tone:

-Shows the evolution in his character

-Hint to how he's feeling/reacting to what's happening to him

"Tell me what it is, Gretta. I think I know what is the matter. Do I know?"

Analysis of Gabriel's evolution (mood/tone/character)

"A vague terror seized Gabriel at this answer as if, at that hour when he had hoped to triumph, some impalpable and vindictive being was coming against him, gathering forces against him in its vague world."

• "What was he? asked Gabriel, still ironically."

Binary oppositions:

• "Perhaps that was why you wanted to go to Galway with that Ivors girl? he said coldly."

• Life vs Death
• Present vs Past
• Hot vs Cold

''His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world: the solid world itself which these dead had one time reared and lived in was dissolving and dwindling.''

Symbols

''Gabriel felt humiliated by the failure of his irony and by the evocation of this figure from the dead''

''A shameful consciousness of his own person assailed him.''

Snow:

“Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried.”

Metaphors:

-Snow falling upon the dead and the living

Isolation & the inability to know others

“Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried.”

-The separation of death

separation between the living