Transcript How to Read The Dead - University of Washington

Dubliners 1914, after 10 years delay
James Joyce (1882 – 1941)




Intended as a moral
chapter
Most stories were
written when Joyce
was 22;
15 stories
“The Dead” as a
crowning piece (at
the age of 24-25)
7/18/2015
1
The Movie version 1987
Directed by John Huston (1906 –1987)



7/18/2015
Wrote most of 37
feature films he directed
(emulating
Shakespeare?)
received 15 Oscar
nominations, won twice
directed both his father,
Walter Huston, and
daughter, Anjelica
Huston to Oscar wins in
different films.
2
The Dead
John Huston’s “Swan Song”

The Dead is a 1987
film directed by John
Huston, starring his
daughter Anjelica
Huston as Gretta.
The Dead was the
last film that Huston
directed, and it was
released
posthumously著作者
死后出版的
7/18/2015

"Huston directed the
movie, at eighty,
from a wheelchair,
jumping up to look
through the camera,
with oxygen tubes
trailing from his
nose to a portable
generator”
3
Swan Song

The phrase "swan
song" is a reference to
an ancient belief that
the Mute Swan (Cygnus
olor) is completely mute
during its lifetime until
the moment just before
it dies, when it sings
one beautiful song.
7/18/2015

final theatrical or
dramatic appearance, or
any final work or
accomplishment. It
generally carries the
connotation that the
performer is aware that
this is the last
performance of his or
her lifetime, and is
expending everything in
one magnificent final
effort.
Famous authors
on “Swan Song”

Aesop's fable of "The
Swan Mistaken for a
Goose" alludes to it:
"The swan, who had
been caught by mistake
instead of the goose,
began to sing as a
prelude to its own
demise. His voice was
recognized and the
song saved his life."
7/18/2015

Ovid mentions it in "The
Story of Picus and
Canens": "There, she
poured out her words of
grief, tearfully, in faint
tones, in harmony with
sadness, just as the
swan sings once, in
dying, its own funeral
song."
5
Aunt Julia’s Swan Song
http://www.themodernword.com/joyce/joyce_paper_wa
rren.html

Aunt Julia’s song,
“Arrayed for the Bridal,”
a colora’tura so’prano
‘aria, is ironic in that
she is unmarried and,
as Columbia’s Hurt
suggests, “her only
bridegroom is death”
(Columbia “Arrayed”
Lyrics).
7/18/2015


Gabriel’s response:
Followed the sound
without looking at
her face, knowing
instinctively that she
may not be there for
the next Christmas
party;
6
Aunt Julia

Aunt Julia’s hair, drawn low over the
tops of her ears, was grey; and grey
also, with darker shadows, was her
large flaccid face. Though she was stout
in build and stood erect, her slow eyes
and parted lips gave her the
appearance of a woman who did not
know where she was or where she was
going.
7/18/2015
7
Background
“The Dead” signals a change
in Joyce’s attitude to his home country

Joyce completed this story in Rome in 1907; it was
the last to be written. Because of the content of
some of the dialogue in the story, we can assume it
took place in the first week of January in 1904,
probably between January 2nd (Saturday) and
January 6th (Wednesday). The characters speak of
the party as taking place after New Year's Eve but
still during Christmas time, which would last until
January 6th, the Feast of the Epiphany (Twelfth
Night). The date of 1904 is accepted because they
talk about Pope Pius X's recent (November,1903)
Motu ‘Proprio. --Wallace Gray
7/18/2015
8
Richard Ellmann’s Essay online



Biographical approach contributes to
interpretations, sheds light on meaning;
Ellmann’s book is a landmark work in
Joycean studies;
Karen DiYanni’s example in her analysis
of Kafka
7/18/2015
9
Richard Ellmann (1918--1987)


taught at Harvard, Northwestern, and Yale before
becoming Goldsmiths' Professor of English Literature
at Oxford University. He edited Joyce's letters, and,
his authoritative autobiography, James Joyce, won
the 1959 National Book Award for nonfiction.
A revised edition of the biography was published in
1982. He edited My Brother's Keeper; by Stanislaus
Joyce, and was co-editor with Ellsworth Mason of The
Critical Writings of James Joyce. His other books
include important studies of Yeats and a biography of
Oscar Wilde.
7/18/2015
10
The Feast of Epiphany
Epiphany (from Koine Greek
(ἡ) ἐπιφάνεια, epiphaneia "appearance",
"manifestation") is a Christian feast day
that celebrates the revelation of God in
human form in the person of Jesus
Christ. It falls on 6 January or, in many
countries, on the Sunday that falls
between 2 January and 8 January.

7/18/2015
11
Epiphany, a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight
into the reality or essential meaning of something,
usually initiated by some simple, homely, or
commonplace occurrence or experience.


The Greek tradition
The climactic
moment when a god
appears and
imposes order on
the scene as in
Greek dramas
7/18/2015


The Christian
tradition
a Christian festival,
observed on January
6, commemorating
the manifestation of
Christ to the gentiles
in the persons of the
Magi; Twelfth-day.
12
Twelfth Night (holiday)


Twelfth Night is a festival in some branches
of Christianity marking the coming of the
Epiphany and concluding the Twelve Days of
Christmas.
It is defined by the Shorter Oxford English
Dictionary as "the evening of the fifth of
January, preceding Twelfth Day, the eve of
the Epiphany, formerly the last day of the
Christmas festivities and observed as a time
of merrymaking".
7/18/2015
13
Twelfth Night, or What You Will
a comedy by William Shakespeare 1601-02

A Scene from
Twelfth Night by
William
Shakespeare: Act V,
Scene i (William
Hamilton, c. 1797).
7/18/2015
14
Decode the Title
Allusion & Counterpoint

One of the most
popular and well known
books of poetry at the
time was Thomas
Moore's Irish Melodies,
written during the
period 1807-34. It is
generally conceded that
the title of this story
comes from a poem in
that volume.
7/18/2015



Robert Scholes’ essay:
“Counterparts and the
Method of Dubliners”
online (as warrant,
something
authoritative);
Counterpoint as a
method of music
composition;
Wei’s theory: the law of
the shadow
15
Counterpoint

In music, counterpoint is the relationship
between two or more voices that are
independent in contour and rhythm and are
harmonically interdependent. It has been
most commonly identified in classical music,
developing strongly during the Renaissance
and in much of the common practice period,
especially in Baroque music. The term
originates from the Latin punctus contra
punctum meaning "point against point".
7/18/2015
16
The dead and the Living
Textual Evidence




The last line:
River Liffey for “life”
The park, Dublin's Phoenix Park
(opened in 1747) is the largest city park
in the world, comprising more than
1700 acres
Viand, Latin vivere (to live),
7/18/2015
17
The Ending of The Dead: A Deadly Ending?
--The Law of the Shadow-

James Joyce’s famous long short story The Dead (19061907) presents the painful metamorphosis Gabriel Conroy
goes through on Twelfth Night (the end of the Christmas
holiday season) once he found out that his wife Gretta had
secretly treasured a dead lover for many years .
To put it in a nutshell, the story weaves around Gabriel’s
Three Unpleasant Encounters: Lily as family servant girl
with her “back answers” to Gabriel’s two stereotyped
questions; Molly as his intellectual equal who challenged
him during the dance; His wife Gretta’s revelation—the
most intimate relationship, therefore most damaging—in
the climatic order
7/18/2015
18
British Invasion of Ireland
the root cause: Internal or External?

The English conquest of Ireland began when a local ruler
asked King Henry II and his barons to help him regain his
kingdom. Some of the barons arrived first, in 1169, and
Henry followed in 1171. Henry encouraged his followers
to seize parts of the island and hold them as fiefs of the
crown. Henry's descendants intermarried with the local
population and increasingly adapted Irish customs.
However, the English did not control the island effectively,
and they regarded the Irish and the English-Irish as their
enemies. The authority of the English crown was
eventually restored over the entire island during the 16th
century by Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, who also attempted
to suppress the Roman Catholic church.
7/18/2015
19
引狼入室【yǐnlángrùshì】 invite
a wolf into a house.

The 'when' is easy enough to pinpoint the fateful decade when an AngloNorman colony of barons established
itself in northern and eastern Ireland;
and the fateful year, 1171, when the
kings of Ireland had knelt before Henry
II, in a specially built palace made of
wattle, and had submitted to him as
their overlord and High King.
7/18/2015
20
A pattern in the world history

In 1166, the King of Leinster, Diarmait
MacMurchada was forced to flee from
Dublin and from his kingdom by an
alliance of Irish enemies, including the
new High King, Ruaidri Ua Conchobair.
'Awful the deed done in Ireland today',
wrote the chronicler of Leinster, 'the
expulsion overseas by the men of
Ireland of Diarmait...'.
7/18/2015
21
A price to pay

And awful were its consequences. For
Diarmait landed in Bristol and asked for
help from King Henry II to get his
throne back. Now what happens when
you ask the Godfather for a favour? He
expects something, some day, in
return. And, as the Song of Dermot
made clear, from the beginning that
something was:
7/18/2015
22
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/midd
le_ages/ireland_invasion_01.shtml


To you I come to make my plaint, good sire
In the presence of the barons of your empire.
Your liege-man I shall become henceforth all
the days of my life, On condition you be my
helper so that I do not lose at all You I shall
acknowledge as sire and lord...
Then the King promised him, the powerful
king of England That willingly would he help
him as soon as he should be able.
7/18/2015
23
“History is a nightmare from
which I am trying to awake.”
7/18/2015
24
A servant of two masters

Stephen responds that he is “the servant of
two masters . . . an English and an Italian,”
meaning “the imperial British state” and “the
holy Roman catholic and apo’stolic church.”
He adds there is a third master, Ireland, “who
wants [him] for odd jobs.” It is about 8:00
a.m. when Stephen heads off to the boys’
boarding school where he teaches.
7/18/2015
25
Colonialism & Colonization
Loss of Independence



Colonialism in Ireland
Joyce’s works were
written at the peak of
Irish nationalism to
search for an identity,
national as well as
personal;
Irish nationalism as
represented by Molly
Ivors, an intellectual
equal to Gabriel;
7/18/2015







Colonization in other
forms (a much more
generalized concept)
By an idea (The Tipping
Point);
By a religion;
By moral principles
By cultural practice;
By political party lines;
By habits (calloused
response to a situation)
26
Autonomy vs. heteronomy
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804)



Autonomy
independence or
freedom, as of the
will or one's actions:
the autonomy of the
individual.
I do something out
of my free will
because it is the
right thing to do…
7/18/2015



Heteronomy
the condition of
being under the
domination of an
outside authority,
either human or
divine.
I do something
because of benefits
attached or derived
27
from it.
Lily





Easter Lily: resurrection, rebirth
Associated with the Archangel Gabriel
Lily of the Valley or Madonna
lily in Renaissance art
The Virgin’s chaste purity at the
Annunciation
7/18/2015
28
Lily

In choosing this name Joyce wants the reader
to make the associations that the flower has
with: 1) death (it is frequently used at
funerals); 2) the Archangel Gabriel (it is
symbolic of this guardian of the gates of
death); and 3) Easter, and thus with rebirth
or Resurrection. The reader will want to
decide whether or not there is a rebirth at the
end of this story. Many readers fall flat on
this note.
7/18/2015
29
literally run off her feet 40

A fine example of stylistic inflection, in
which the personality of the character
being written about begins to influence
the author's choice of words and
rhythms. The correct word would be
"figuratively," but to say "literally" is
common among many people,
particularly those with Lily's minimal
education.
7/18/2015
30
“The Uncle Charles Principle”
stylistic inflection
from Hugh Kenner’s book Joyce’s Voices



“The narrative idiom need not be the
narrator’s.”
“Reality […] does not answer to the ‘point
of view,’ the monocular vision, the single
ascertainable tone. A tone, a voice, is
somebody’s, a person’s, and people are
confined to being themselves, are
Evelines, are Croftons, are Stephens.”
Lily’s diction (choice of word) in “The Dead”
7/18/2015
31
Point of View in narration
Omniscient/Limited




The first-person narration
The second-person narration
The third-person narration
Distinction between the narrator and
the characters
7/18/2015
32
Parallel structure 40
and rhyme

Miss Kate and Miss Julia were there,
gossiping and laughing and fussing,
walking after each other to the head of
the stairs, peering down over the
banisters and calling down to Lily to ask
her who had come.
7/18/2015
33
Joyce at 50
Cartoon drawn by César Albin for Joyce's 50th birthday, and appearing in
transition magazine. (Copyright César Albin. The Harley Croessman
Collection of James Joyce, Special Collection, Morris Library, Southern
Illinois University at Carbondale.)

“Signatures of all
things, I am here to
read.” James Joyce,
Ulyless

To read means to
question, to interpret,
to make inferences, to
be critical, the first step
to become intelletually
independent
7/18/2015
34
The Opening Scene
Purpose of a scene



1. Advance story – The scene must move the story
forward. This could mean introducing a problem or
making a problem worse for the characters.
2. Show conflict – The conflict could be between
two characters, a character and nature, a character
and time, and so on.
3. Introduce character – The reader needs to
meet each character at some point. A careful writer
does not introduce too many characters in one scene.
This could confuse the reader.
7/18/2015
35
Purpose of a scene


4. Develop character – Along with
introducing a character, a writer can
use a scene to show the character’s
good and bad points.
5. Create suspense – Suspense keeps
the reader’s interest going, perhaps
more than any other element of fiction
7/18/2015
36
Purpose of a scene



6. Give information – The writer can weave
information into a scene so the reader knows the
needed background of the story.
7. Create atmosphere – Using conventions such as
setting, weather, and time, the writer can create a
certain mood in a scene.
8. Develop theme – A piece of fiction should have
a theme. Each scene should bring out the theme to
the reader.
7/18/2015
37
Showing vs. Telling






Showing
More descriptive;
More vivid;
More detailed;
Suggestive, indirect
Non-intrusive on the
part of the author or
narrator;
7/18/2015






Telling
General: Lily is very
busy.
Narrative summary/
Summative
expository
Commentary
38
Notes (40)

Only the very best
houses had indoor
bathrooms. Although
Leopold Bloom's house
in Ulysses has an indoor
and outdoor toilet
(Bloom prefers the
outdoor one), that
house does not have a
bath.
7/18/2015




Miss Kat and Miss
Julia
The Misses Morkans
They are spinsters,
never get married;
Morkans-- morke is
'darkness' in Danish
39
always a great affair

Note that the voice telling the story is
no longer Lily's, but rather the voice of
the people of a certain Dublin class who
knew about and attended parties where
their fellow guests would be, as they
are at this party, writers, educators,
musicians, lovers of the "finer" things
Dublin has to offer.
7/18/2015
40
Parallel structure 40





Everybody who knew them came to it,
members of the family,
old friends of the family,
the members of Julia’s choir,
any of Kate’s pupils that were grown up
enough,
and even some of Mary Jane’s pupils
too.
7/18/2015
41
Jinx it



Never once had it fallen flat.
to bring bad luck to; place a jinx on:
The strike has jinxed my plans to go to
Milwaukee for the weekend.
to destroy the point of: His sudden
laugh jinxed the host's joke.
7/18/2015
42
Stoney Batter


A quay on the River Liffey, river of life, the
river that runs through Dublin, opposite the
quay that is called Usher's Island.
Joyce wrote this story while living in Rome
and, as it is a tribute to Irish hospitality, he is
engaging in some intricate allusions to his
own family as well as to the family of the real
musical sisters who lived in the house on
Usher's Island, a house that is still standing.
7/18/2015
43
Notes (40)


corn-factor:
A factor is an agent who transacts
business for others.
thirty years ago if it was a day:
Another example of the conversational
style of Dubliners that takes part in
Joyce's narration.
7/18/2015
44
For she had the organ in
Haddington Road 40


The main prop: the main support
Haddington Road:
Mary Jane is the organist employed at
St. Mary's Church in Haddington Road,
which is in one of the affluent Dublin
neighborhoods.
7/18/2015
45
She had been through
the Academy 40

the Academy:
The Royal Irish Academy of Music,
formerly the Ancient Concert Rooms,
which were founded as a place for
concerts by the Ancient Concerts
Society in 1843. Joyce sang at a recital
there when he was twenty-two.
7/18/2015
46
Kingstown and Dalkey 40

Kingstown was the name (under British rule)
of the major Dublin port located some six
miles south of Dublin; it is now called Dun
Laoghaire. Within walking distance south of
Dun Laoghaire one finds the Martello Tower
where Joyce lived for a few days in 1904 and
which he used as the setting of the opening
episode of Ulysses. Dalkey, where Stephen
teaches at the boy's school is Ulysses, is a
short distance south of the Tower.
7/18/2015
47
Adam and Eve's 41


The Franciscan Church of St. Francis of Assisi
-- familiarly known as Adam and Eve's -- near
Usher's Island, occurs in the opening words
of Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, where it
becomes Eve and Adam's.
Saint Francis ( Francisco Javier; “the Apostle
of the Indies” ), 1506–52, Spanish Jesuit
missionary, esp. in India and Japan.
7/18/2015
48
A square piano 41
7/18/2015
49
They believed in eating well



three-shilling tea: how much could
Eveline makes a week?
and good everyday tea sold for onefourth of this price.
Diamond-bone sirloins: The sirloin is of
course an expensive cut,
7/18/2015
50
What are you eating?
7/18/2015
51
Back answers/retort
Register 【语言】语域 in language



Lily is actually full of “back answers,”
not the girl she used to be.
What happened?
back answers:
Another example of a character's voice
becoming the author's voice. "Back
answers" would be tart or short
tempered responses.
7/18/2015
52
Suspense and expectation 41
Long after ten o’clock yet there was no
sign of Gabriel and his wife.
 They wondered what could be keeping
Gabriel: and that was what brought
them every two minutes to the
banisters to ask Lily…
 Hyperbole 【修辞学】夸张法
/exaggeration
 Understatement 轻描淡写
7/18/2015
53

Freddy Malins

Screwed: drunk (41)
7/18/2015
54
Gabriel’s Dramatic Entrance


Something dramatic implies conflict,
implies irony that things fall flat, going
in a direction unexpected or opposite to
our expectation;
Lily’s role in presenting Gabriel is
crucial;
7/18/2015
55
Gabriel & Lily
Gabriel as a messenger




7/18/2015
Archangel is a term
meaning an angel of
high rank.
Gabriel is named an
archangel in the Holy
Bible's New Testament
book, Luke.
Gabriel, traditionally
named as an archangel,
delivering the
Annunciation.
Painting by Paolo de
Matteis, 1712.
56
Spent Three mortal hours
for what reason? 41



My wife takes three
mortal hours to
dress herself;
Suggestive of death,
mortality;
Reveal Gretta’s
character;
7/18/2015

Death was first
introduced when
Joyce mentioned the
death of Pat (40)
57
Toddling/snow

toddling down:
A nice touch on Joyce's
part to suggest the
childlike, even infantile,
character of the two
women. And for those
who know German, this
is a nice Klang (echo)
association with "Tod"
(death).
7/18/2015

Symbolic
meaning of
snow
58
Here I am as right as the mail 41

right as the mail:
Astonishing to us nowadays but
the turn-of-the-century Dublin
equivalent of email: five pickups
of mail and five deliveries each
day!
7/18/2015
59
Faux pas for False Step

A faux pas (pronounced /ˌfoʊˈpɑː/, plural:
faux pas /ˌfoʊˈpɑː(z)/) is a violation of
accepted social norms (for example, standard
customs or etiquette rules). Faux pas vary
widely from culture to culture, and what is
considered good manners in one culture can
be considered a faux pas in another. The
term comes originally from French, and
literally means "false step."
7/18/2015
60
Faux pas for False Step

This expression is usually used in social and
diplomatic contexts. The term has been in
use in English for some time and is no longer
italicized when written. In French, it is
employed literally to describe a physical loss
of balance as well as figuratively, in which
case the meaning is roughly the same as in
English. Other familiar synonyms include
gaffe and bourde (bourde, unlike faux pas,
can designate any type of mistake).
7/18/2015
61
About Lily




Done school
Her language: incorrect pronunciation-conoroy/poor grammar
Seems to have some bad experience
with man/men?
One bad experience can’t stand for all;
7/18/2015
62
Origin
In his book Aspects of the novel (1927), E. M.
Forster defined two basic types of characters,
their qualities, functions, and importance for
the development of the novel: flat characters
and round characters. Flat characters are
two-dimensional in that they are relatively
uncomplicated and often are have very little
details or background information. By
contrast, round characters are complex and
often very detailed with lots of background
information.
7/18/2015
63

flat and round characters

as described by the course of their
development in a work of literature. Flat
characters are two-dimensional in that
they are relatively uncomplicated and
do not change throughout the course of
a work. By contrast, round characters
are complex and undergo development,
sometimes sufficiently to surprise the
reader.
7/18/2015
64
Flat vs. round characters



One or two-dimensional
Salient features or
characteristics for easy
identification;
a minor character in a
work of fiction who
does not undergo
substantial change or
growth in the course of
a story. Also referred to
as "two-dimensional
characters" or "static
7/18/2015




Round characters
Rich personality
3-D
A round character is a
major character in a
work of fiction who
encounters conflict and
is changed by it. Round
characters tend to be
more fully developed
and described than flat,
or static, characters. 65
Implications of snow

Snow is unusual in Dublin. Since snow is
significant throughout the story and especially
as a final image, its meaning must be
interpreted. There are conflicting views of its
symbolic meaning in this story, and we will
deal with these in the annotations to the
concluding paragraphs.
7/18/2015
66
goloshes

Galoshes (from French: galoches), also
known as boat shoes, dickersons, or
overshoes, are a type of rubber boot that is
slipped over shoes to keep them from getting
muddy or wet. The word galoshes might be
used interchangeably with boot, especially a
rubberized boot. Properly speaking, however,
galoshes are synonymous with rain boots
often reaching heights just below the knee.
7/18/2015
67
“Goloshes” as a text




Gretta’s perspective: she hates it;
Gabriel’s attitude: popular on the
continent (European continent); open
to new ideas/trends; more European
than Irish; more international than
national;
As a protective husband;
Aunt Julia’s perplexity/ignorance
7/18/2015
68
Michael

Michael is viewed as the field
commander of the Army of
God. He is mentioned by
name in the Book of Daniel
the Book of Jude and the
Book of Revelation. In the
book of Daniel, Michael
appears as "one of the chief
princes" who in Daniel's
vision comes to the
Archangel Gabriel's aid in his
contest with the angel of
Persia (Dobiel).
7/18/2015
69
Puckers and Creases


7/18/2015
to gather or contract
(a soft surface such
as the skin of the
face) into wrinkles
or folds, or (of such
a surface) to be so
gathered or
contracted
2. a wrinkle, crease,
or irregular fold
70
Dr. Samuel Johnson’s definition

Oats: A grain, which in England is
generally given to horses, but in
Scotland appears to support the people.
7/18/2015
71
River Liffey
The Liffey (An Life in Irish) is
a river in Ireland
7/18/2015
72