Transcript James Joyce “The Dead”

James Joyce
“The Dead”
Dubliners
• Published with the rest of the
collection but written in Trieste in
1907
• Setting → Julia and Kate Morkan’s
house (during their Christmas party)
→ along the river Liffey,
a cab
→ a hotel room
Characters
 the hostesses (Julia + Kate Morkan, their niece
Mary Jane)
 Gabriel, Gretta
 Lily, the housemaid
 the guests:
Miss Ivors (a University teacher, fanatically in love
with Ireland)
Freddy Malins (a drunkard)
Mr Bartell D’Arcy (a singer)
Mr Browne (a Protestant)
Structure and plot
3 parts:
• arrival of guests and first dances
• Gabriel’s dance with Miss Ivors, supper and
speech
• song, departure, hotel scene (revelation of
Gretta’s past love)
three stages of a unified theme: a man’s
realization of his psychological paralysis
epiphany
“By an epiphany he meant ' a sudden
spiritual manifestation, whether in the
vulgarity of speech or of gesture or in a
memorable phase of the mind itself. He
believed that it was for the man of letters to
record these epiphanies with extreme care,
seeing that they themselves are the most
delicate and evanescent of moments”.
Stephen Hero, 1944
• Gabriel’s egotism→ broken down by
three “failures”
1. Lily’s sharp remark on men when he
mentions a possible future wedding
(failure as a gentleman)
2. Miss Ivors’ use of the abusive term
West Briton (failure as an Irishman)
3. Gretta’s withdrawal into the past and
her revelation (failure as a man, a lover,
a husband)
•
alone to meditate on the living and the
dead (Who are the former? Who are
the latter?)
• ambiguous conclusion:
1. he yields to the final paralysis
symbolized by the snow
2. he rises from the shades through
deeper understanding, generosity,
love, a closer union with nature
• final part of the story: Gabriel gradually
abandons his egotism and starts feeling a
member of a vaster community
• in the three final paragraphs: first, he
compares his love to Michael’s (he has
never been able of such a feeling)
• then he imagines he sees the young man
and the many human beings that are dead
• finally he feels his identity fade out to
become part of the community of the living
and the dead, whom the snow covers with
the same whiteness and silence
• last paragraph→description of the snow:
reproduces symbolically the process illustrated
in the two previous paragraphs.
• language: the narrator’s or Gabriel’s?
• use of alliterative patterns, sound effects,
repetitions→evoke an atmosphere between
death and awareness; give unity to the
paragraph, enacting the writer’s intention to
evoke the unity of all creatures in the universe
A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the
window. It had begun to snow again. He watched
sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely
against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set
out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were
right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on
every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills,
falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward,
softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It
was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard
on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly
drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the
spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His 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.
A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the
window. It had begun to snow again. He watched
sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely
against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set
out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were
right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on
every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills,
falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward,
softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It
was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard
on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly
drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the
spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His 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.
symbols
• the journey westward
• the snow
• first names
The West
• The region where the sun sets, the place
of death
• America: the place where to lay the
foundations of a new existence
• The West of Ireland: wild, half-known
country where the roots of real Irishness
lie deep; where Gretta and Michael come
from (Nora Barnacle). Going west = accept
to be totally Irish
Snow
• Cold sterility of the protagonist’s
emotional life
• The common destiny of death + a
possibility of rebirth
• General paralysis
Names
Michael
Daniel 10,13-21: one of
the most important
angels, their leader, a
protector
Judas’ Letter 9: the
archangel fighting
with the devil
Revelation 12,7: a war
in heaven, Michael
and his angels
against the dragon
Gabriel
Daniel 8,15-24: the
angel who speaks,
explains things to
man; reveals what will
happen at the end of
times, helps man to
understand
Luke 1,11-20.26: the
messenger, brings
good news (Zacharias
will have a son);
announces to Mary
the birth of Jesus