The Living Live On With the Dead

“The Dead” Blog Post

The story "The Dead" in the novel Dubliners, by James Joyce, reviews in a poignant way how the living and the dead are not separated, and must live on with the dead. Gabriel realizes the dead are apart of his life, and the life of those around him, which is accomplished by the narrator, which gravitates to the voice of the character and does not explicitly tell the reader what to think; epiphanies are for the reader to find for himself.

In narrating the ironies, primarily shown through Gabriel, of living with the presence of the dead, Joyce uses a technique called "free indirect discourse," which is narration in the third person, but containing the biases and the style of narrating in the first person (Evans). This style allows Joyce to connect the reader with the character, and make the ironies of the story clear without explicitly saying so. For example, in the beginning of the story, it says: "Lily, the caretaker’s daughter, was literally run off her feet” (Joyce 151). Lily was not run off her feet, but if Lily were to describe her present situation, those are the words she would use. Taking this into mind, Lily is first described as the caretaker’s daughter. To me, this reflects a lack of identity and importance Lily feels, who only identifies herself as her mother’s daughter. This style of narration gives us great insight into the type of person Lily is.

But, this technique is used in greater irony of Gabriel. A hilarious encounter in the beginning of the novel occurs when Lily is greeting Gabriel at the door, and he makes a careless remark (as if he knows everything) suggesting Lily should get married soon. Lily responds by saying, “The men that is now is only all palaver and what they can get out of you” (Joyce 154). Gabriel feels mighty awkward and “took a coin rapidly from his pocket” (Joyce 154). From this, we can see the supercilious condescension Gabriel feels towards pretty much everyone in the room, but he wants to keep up his appearance. He is superficial, self-righteous, and insecure. He feels very awkward at this encounter, and can only respond by giving Lily money. We will see later that Gabriel uses money many times to quell his insecurities.

The greatest irony is when Gabriel says in his speech, “still cherish in our hearts the memory of those dead and gone great ones whose fame the world will not willingly let die…were we to brood upon them always we could not find the heart to go on bravely with our work among the living” (Joyce 177). Gabriel predicts his own demise in his speech; one can only wonder what Gretta is thinking at this point. But, the narrator does not make many observations, except for those of positive encouragement or expressions of mirth at his words, because Gabriel is too focused upon himself. He sees this speech as a duty, and is wholly focused on it. Ironically, Gabriel does not realize how much of his own life and that of his wife is affected by “the dead.” He says, we should cherish the memories of the dead, but ultimately move on. Later, in the story he finds out that his wife has been comparing him to another man the entire marriage, and her entire life. He is the one who has to move on.

Gabriel’s ultimate epiphany is when his wife recalls her memory of Michael Furey, and how he “did not want to live” (Joyce 192). Gretta cries and falls asleep, while Gabriel muses. He realizes that he never felt “that towards any woman but he knew that such a feeling must be love” (194). He has never felt love at all. And, Gabriel was not Gretta’s first love either. All of a sudden, his peaceful and dull life is “livened” by the appearance of somebody from the dead. This experience is pivotal to the theme of how we must all accept the influence of the dead among the living. The dead are apart of his life.

Works Cited

Evans, Val. "Writer's Notebook." Writers Notebook. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2013.

Joyce, James, and Margot Norris. Dubliners: Authoritative Text, Contexts, Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. Print.