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.

The Dead versus The Living

“The Dead” is the last story in the collection of short stories in the book ‘Dubliners’ by James Joyce. The story takes place over the course of a night, more specifically, during an annual dinner party hosted by the three Misses Morkans. The story centers around the Morkan’s favorite nephew Gabriel Conroy and his social interaction and insecurities.

Joyce explores a number of themes in “The Dead”- like class distinction, the Irish nationality, betrayal, paralysis etc—however, the main theme is one that explores the question of mortality and the relationship between the living and the dead and therefore the past and the present.

One can say that in “The Dead” the relationship between the living and the dead is analogous to the two sides of a coin, or to put it in a slightly different way, its an intimate relationship in the sense that it is very fluid—and reversible. The difference between the living and the dead is life and the lack of life, however, if one were to go deeper into that difference, death can also be seen as paralysis—whereas life is characterized by constant change. This is why the relationship between the dead and the living is reversible in the story, because the characters are in a state of paralysis in the book (which is also one of the themes that Joyce explores). The Morkans host the same dinner party every year, where the same people come, where Freddie Malins always comes under influence—the characters are stuck in a rut of inaction and numbness where nothing ever changes- and so though they are not literally dead, the inaction in their life is as close to dying without the actual act of death. On the other hand, the dead in the story—Michael Furey, Mrs. Conroy’s past romantic interest, lives through her memory of him. In fact, in a epiphany, Gabriel Conroy comes to the rather painful realization that Michael Furey had been more alive than he ever was because, “he [Gabriel] had never felt like that himself towards any woman, but he knew that such a feeling must be love” and hence it was “better  [to] pass boldly into that other world, in full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age” (Joyce, 152). The idea behind this realization is that life is short and its even shorter when one thinks about the dangers of falling into a rut.

Joyce was able to explore this theme very well, due to the fact that the story was written in third person narrative. So, though majority of the story focused on Gabriel Conroy, Joyce was still able to step away from the protagonist—for example, the story begins with Lilly (the help), “Lilly the caretakers daughter, was literally run off her feet,” (Joyce, 119)— for long enough so that the reader could read between the lines and explore the theme himself.

Therefore what I took from my reading of “The Dead” was that the technique one uses (first, second or third person) has a strong influence on the narrative, and on translating the idea or the theme behind the piece for the reader.

-Smriti Bansal

Works Cited

Joyce, James. "The Dead." Dubliners. New York: Dover Publications, n.d. 119-52. Print.

Death: Our Universal Heritage

Death is one of the few things all humans have in common. And yet, just as we are all biologically different, we all seem to have a different perception of death, and its inevitability seems to hang over us in multiple ways. James Joyce sheds an interesting light on death in his short story “The Dead,” one of several pieces in his book Dubliners, published in 1914. 

Joyce unexpectedly uses the much-cherished and lighthearted event of a Christmas dinner, wealthy in Irish custom and tradition, as a sharp contrast to the morbid and brooding remembrance of “the dead.” I found it interesting how Joyce seemed to sprinkle the concept of death throughout his piece, going from low intensity to high as the story line progressed. Death doesn’t become a commitment to Joyce’s work until more than halfway through the plot. The first mention of the deceased is a fleeting one; as part of a background character description, the brother of the two women hosting the dinner is said to have passed away quite a while ago. Later on, over carved goose and ham, the dinner guests engage in conversation of musicians of times past, reveling in their glory, and plaintively observing that such remarkable artists are not as prevalent in their present time. 

The most striking portrayal of death, however, is disclosed near the story’s very end. Gabriel, the main character, notices at the dinner party that his wife, Gretta, is left in a mysterious, deep stupor after another dinner guest showcases the melodies of The Lass of Aughrim, a song that we later learn reminds Gretta of a childhood sweetheart who used to sing it to her, but died of a disease that could have been tuberculosis at the age of seventeen. We see that Joyce has again juxtaposed the image of death to a livelier subject, this time the warmth of love. 

The author leaves his audience with a memorable ending line: “[Gabriel’s] soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead” (Joyce 194). I’m sure many could relate to this type of pondering wonder concerning the finality of the end, especially when thinking of one’s own. Gabriel does this, thinking that “the time had come for him to set out on his journey westward,” ‘westward’ here meaning towards death (194). To be honest I scarcely think of death, the non-ceasing onslaught of events, deadlines, dreams, and relationships in my life keeping me immortally occupied, stressed, in pursuit, and ambivalent, or so it seems to me. But when I think of those who have already gone, especially those much younger than me, I am forced to realize that I must never forget to step back from all the broo-haha of life, and see to it that what I have lived is deep and satisfying enough to take with me into the afterlife, because, as Joyce reminds me, I could go at any moment.

The singular element of Joyce’s contrast between opposite themes is one I might find useful in my own writing. Though in this response I did center my attention on his theme of death, he did beautifully incorporate many other themes in his work, including the discrepancy between members of the higher classes and those of the lower classes who have moved into higher spheres, the concept of the “self” insofar as origin is concerned, and the worry of the degeneration of values as new generations emerge, among other splendidly woven ideas. Joyce successfully submerges his readers in a world of higher thought, all in the span of one documented day.