James Joyce - The Dead

The Author

James Joyce was born in Rathgar, a suburb in the south of Dublin, on

February 2, 1882. He was the first of ten children. His parents were John

Stanislaus Joyce, an improvident rate collector, and Mary Jane Murray.

James was baptised in Roman Catholic faith at the church of St Joseph,

Terenure, on February 5.

In 1887 the Joyce family moved to Bray, a seaside town fifteen miles south of

Dublin. From 1888 to 1891 James studied at Clongowes Wood College, Sallins,

County Kildare, a well-known Jesuit school. In 1891 the family, who had

financial problems, moved first to Blackrock and then to Dublin. After a brief

interlude with the Christian Brothers on North Richmond Street, Joyce finished

his Jesuit education at Belvedere College. In 1898 he entered University

College, Dublin, where he read French, Italian and English. In 1902, Joyce left

for Paris in order to study medicine, but he soon returned to Dublin in August

of 1903 because of his mother’s death . Back in Dublin James Joyce started

working an the first draft of ‘Stephen Hero’. In 1904 he fell in love with Nora

Barnacle, a girl from Galway who worked in a hotel. In the same year he also

published the first story of the collection ‘Dubliners’. He decided to leave for

Zurich together with Nora, where he taught at the Berlitz school. A year later

they moved to Trieste where his son Giorgo was born on 27 July 1905.

Six months later, James Joyce sent twelve stories of ‘Dubliners’ to his publisher,

who hesitated eleven years to publish these stories, because he was afraid of

censorship. In 1907 Joyce published ‘Chamber Music’, a collection of poems.

In the same year his daughter Lucia Anna was born.

The following years were marked by the beginning of Joyce’s eye problems.

In 1914 ‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’ was published. Joyce’s play

‘Exiles’ was published in 1918 in London and New York. In 1920 the family

Joyce moved to Paris and two years later the full text of ‘Ulysses’ was

published in book form. His second collection of poems, ‘Pomes Penyeach’,

was published in 1927. On 4 July 1931 James and Nora were married in

London ‘for testamentary reasons’. In the same year, Joyce’s father died in

Dublin.

By 1933 Joyce had become nearly blind. Two more of Joyce’s books were

published in the thirties: his ‘Collected Poems’ (1936) and ‘Finnegans Wake’

(1939). In 1940 the family Joyce fled to Switzerland.

Joyce died in Zurich on 13 January 1941, of a perforated ulcer.

About the Story

‘The Dead’ is the last story of ‘Dubliners’. James Joyce wrote this story in Trieste

in 1907. ‘The Dead’ was first published with the rest of the collection in 1917.

‘The Dead’ has the usual division into three parts, indicated by Joyce himself:

arrival of the guests and first dances; Gabriel’s own dance with Miss Ivors,

supper and speech; last song, departure, hotel scene with the revelation of

Gretta’s past love.

Summary

Part

1

The story is set at the house of the Morkans where the sisters Miss Kate and Miss

Julia and their niece Mary Jane have their yearly Christmas party. Everybody

who knows one of the three hostesses comes each year to their dance-party.

This year the guests are worried at first because it was after ten o’clock

Gabriel Conroy, the nephew of Miss Julia and Miss Kate, and his wife Gretta

have still not come. When they finally arrive, everybody is very pleased

because Gabriel is going to give a speech this year. Gabriel wants to give Lily,

who does the housework for her aunts and her cousin, a tip, but she rejects it.

Gabriel goes up the stairs and stops outside the sitting room door in order to

go through his speech again because he is not really content with it. He thinks

that it might be too difficult for his audience, and he does not want to make

another mistake (after offering Lily a tip).

After that he greets the other guests. At the same time, Freddy Malins who is

always drunk arrives. Gabriel is told better to look after Freddy when the other

people go back into the room where they can have a drink or dance. Mary

Jane starts playing the piano, but Gabriel does not listen because he does

not like the music.

Part

2

After Mary Jane has finished playing, Gabriel finds himself standing close to

Miss Ivors as the next dance begins. She is a young woman with honest brown

eyes who talks a lot. They start a conversation and Gabriel tells her that he will

not be able to come to the Aran Isles because he wants to go on a bicycle

tour to France or Belgium. She, however, cannot understand at all why he

does not want to visit his own country, but Gabriel argues that he wants to

practice the foreign languages. When the music has finished, they stop talking

as well and she even calls him ‘West Briton’.

After the dance, Gabriel Conroy speaks to Freddy Mailins’ mother in order to

forget the conversation with Miss Ivors. Then everybody sits down to have

supper, and Gabriel takes a seat at the head of the table. After the supper

Gabriel makes his speech.

Part

3

The last guests are standing at the front door. The cold morning air blows into

the house. Gabriel puts his coat on and waits for his wife Gretta. He goes to

the bottom of the stairs and looks up. He sees a women standing in the

shadow near the top. It is his wife who is listening to a melody. Someone is

playing the piano and a man is singing to the music. It is Mr Bartell D’Arcy who

has not wanted to sing at first. After that, all go to the door and say goodbye

to the hostesses.

Gabriel and his wife Gretta go back home to their hotel. Gretta is very

thoughtful. She tells Gabriel that she keeps thinking about a person she knew

a long time ago when she was living with her grandmother in a small village.

His name was Michael Furey and he was her boyfriend. He died when he was

only seventeen. And she believes he died for her. He was ill and he visited her

because she wanted to move to Dublin. The weather was horrible, it was

raining and a strong wind was blowing. He died one week later.

After this revelation he throws herself down on the bed, crying. While Gretta is

asleep, Gabriel looks out of the window ,and thinks about the story she has

just told him, about his earlier feelings for her, and about how strong they

were. He meditates on the living and the dead.

Characterisation

Gabriel Conroy:

He is the main character of this story. Gabriel, ‘a stout, tallish young man with

glossy black hair and glasses’, works as a university teacher in Galway- In

contrast to Miss Ivors, he is not so fond of his country.

As his wife tells him that this boy, Michael Furey, died for her, he cannot deal

with the situation. He feels completely alone.

Gretta

Conroy:

She is Gabriel’s wife. His mother does not like her. She calls Gretta ‘a sweet girl

from the country’. But she is a rather beautiful woman. At the Christmas party

she remembers Michael Furey. She thinks that he died for her and loves him

because of that.

Interpretation

‘The Dead’ is a description of a man’s realisation of his psychological

paralysis.

1

This is broken down by three mistakes, one in each part of the story:

(1) Lily’s refusal of a tip: Gabriel’s failure as a gentlemen, (2) Miss Ivors’ use of

the abusive term ‘West Briton’: Gabriel’s failure as an Irishman, (3) Gretta’s

withdrawal into the past and her revelation: Gabriel’s failure as a man, a lover

and a husband.

He is then left alone (his wife is fast asleep) to mediate on the living and the

dead while he is looking out of the window.

1

HART, CLIVE: James Joyce’s ‘Dubliners’, Faber&Faber, London, 1969