The Dead Response

Katie Yook

February 25, 2013

The Dead Response

Throughout The Dead, James Joyce tells a story about an unremarkable day in life that sparks feelings of loneliness and highlights subtle frustrations that can build up and grow heavy. 

The narrator the story is an unknown, all-knowing figure.  The narrator is nonchalant because he/she never expresses emotions, and simply notes the thoughts, dialogues, emotions, and actions of all the characters at this party. In a setting of a social reunion, conversation tends to consist of small talk and short interactions. The narrator removes the fakeness of these interactions by giving readers an objective, detached account of what is happening. I feel that the narrator is honest and omniscient, giving me a stark picture of each character.  This makes me feel like all the characters are lonely in a crowded room. Though we see each character through their interactions, they all seem to be in their own world.

Joyce continually mentions the characters gestures and fidgets, making me feel like I am in their head.  Though very subtle and often unconscious, body language reveals A LOT about a person. Joyce’s descriptions of these gestures make me feel as if I am in that person’s body, experiencing the same emotions and thoughts and often unease and awkwardness that is revealed through body language. When Gabriel “patted his tie reassuringly,” I knew how he felt without being told he was feeling embarrassed and self-conscious (157). Again on page 159, Joyce describes the naïve girls dancing: swaying their bodies to and fro, with nervous jerks of their shoulders.” I immediately empathize with these subtle descriptions.

I feel really bad for Gabriel. Lily said one sentence to him that “cast a gloom over him” (155). Gabrial makes a speech but the “whole speech was a mistake from first to last, an utter failure” (155). To make matters worse, his “two aunts laughed heartily too for Gabriel’s solicitude was a standing joke with them” (156). Gabriel takes what people say too seriously and is way too hard on himself, but I think a lot of people are, including myself, which is why I sympathize with him so much. In this scene also, the two aunts and Gabriel’s wife are all ganging up on Gabriel and poking fun at him. I think this reveals something about how women interact with each other—the tendency to team up. Perhaps this is because women are more codependent on each other, or perhaps it is because they feel inferior to men, considering when this was written as well, so they jump at the opportunity to gang up on Gabriel.  Again in the scene between Gabriel and Miss Ivors, Miss Ivors is described as a ‘frankmannered talkative young lady,’ worth describing because most young ladies are expected to be polite and reserved. However, Miss Ivors’ frankness crosses the threshold of rudeness. Throughout their conversation, Gabriel just seems confused and defensive.

I’m always impressed when a story about mundane life can keep me interested. I felt that a heavy theme in this story and in other stories in Dubliners highlights the daily frustrations and repressed emotions experienced in quotidian life. On page 165, “Gabriel tried to cover his agitation.” Unlike most of the females of the story, Gabriel receives criticisms from others and bottles his emotions up, even though his encounters continue to bother him: “Gabriel tried to banish from his mind all memory of the unpleasant incident with Miss Ivors.” Again, I know this feeling, when you don’t want to care about someone’s stupid opinion or remark but it lingers in the back of your mind all day.

This makes me think of the piece I had workshopped last Thursday about the complex mental processes experienced in an ordinary day. Like in the Dead, I want to make my story have more of a connecting plot. Whereas my story seemed disconnected, I felt that the ending of The Dead tied together a point—perhaps the contemplation and revelation of the point of life and the feeling of remorse and giving up. I want my piece to feel like a conclusion and a completed thought by the end.