Only all Palaver: Class and Gender in "The Dead"

In Joyce's Dubliners short story "The Dead", what resonated with me most strongly was the role of men in this text, particularly conveyed through the character of Gabriel. “The Dead” puts Gabriel under an intense spotlight, because his actions and also the way he is treated by others is that of more than just dominance, but of complete control over the women in his life. 

In the moments where Gabriel is one-upped by women, it is clear that he crumbles psychologically, and this occurs in two crucial points in the text. The first is his encounter with Lily, the maid in the Morkan house. Rather than coyly (and in a stereotypical feminine way) accepting his compliments and even his money, Lily protests, telling Gabriel that “the men that is now is only all palaver and what they can get out of you” (154). Gabriel, seeing this as an outlandish statement coming from not only a woman, but a maid at that, is completely out of place. Instead of behaving gentlemanly, he takes a coin and “thrusting it into her hand”, purposefully conveys a tone of “depreciation” (155). His interest is gone, and thus he is rejecting a challenging, progressive woman. As we’ll later learn, his negativity toward women in control grows exponentially in accordance with the scope of the audience as well as the class status of the woman in question. 

In a very similar way, he detests Miss Ivors when she challenges him in a different way, patronizing not his manhood but more his heritage and thoughts about his “own land”, his “own language”, his “own people” (164-165). The language Joyce uses here is different than that in the beginning with Lily—rather than being irked and slightly insulted, with Miss Ivors he is “heated”, “agitated” (165). Because she’s attacking him more personally than Lily, and in a more severe, intelligent way, Gabriel’s distaste toward her is far clearer and more extensive than the moodiness caused by Lily in the beginning of the story. Additionally, I think that class and publicity—together the idea of “keeping a good public image” – also play a role here. What Gabriel dotes on more than the insult itself, internally, is that she had “tried to make him ridiculous before people, heckling at him and staring at him with her rabbit’s eyes” (165). He is, of course, insulted about what she was calling him (a “West Brinton”), but he is more concerned and ashamed of the crowd, where she was calling him these things, undoubtedly judging him as she heckled (165). 

What I’ve gleaned from this is that class undoubtedly is intertwined with the roles of men and women in this text—different communities have different ideas pertaining to the behavior and interaction between the sexes, and I think that fact is eminent here. The crossings of classes in this scenario indicates to me that the role of men in this microcosm is more than just a dominance, it’s a psychology revolved around total and complete control over the women around them.