SYNOPSIS

James Joyce's "The Dead" and Oliver Smith's "The Deserted Village"

James Joyce's "The Dead" and Oliver Smith's "The Deserted Village"

“The Dead”

In “The Dead,” Gabriel Conroy's held back demeanor and his reputation with his aunts as the relation who takes care of everything assess him as a man of authority and caution, but two encounters with women at the party dispute his confidence. First, Gabriel clumsily provokes a defensive declaration from the overworked Lily when he inquires her about her love life. Instead of apologizing or explaining what he intended, Gabriel rapidly finishes the conversation by giving Lily a vacation tip. He blames his prestigious education for his inability to concern to domestics like Lily, but his willingness to let cash talk for him proposes that he relies on the luxuries of his class to sustain distance. (Joyce 2008)

The encounter with Lily displays that Gabriel, like his aunts, will not endure a “back answer,” but he is unable to bypass such trials as the party continues. During his promenade with Miss Ivors, he faces a barrage of questions about his nonexistent nationalist sympathies, which he doesn't understand how to response appropriately. Unable to create a full answer, Gabriel blurts out that he is ill of his own country, surprising Miss Ivors and himself with his unmeasured answer and his decrease of control. (Joyce 2008)

Gabriel's unease culminates in his tense evening with Gretta, and his last encounter with her finally forces him to confront his stony outlook of the world. When he sees Gretta transfixed by the melodies at the end of the party, Gabriel craves intensely to have control of her odd feelings. Though Gabriel recalls their loving courtship and is overwhelm with attraction for Gretta, this attraction is fixed not in love but in his desire to control her. (Brown 2001)

At the inn, when Gretta confesses to Gabriel that she was thinking of her first love, he becomes angry at her and himself, realizing that he has no assertion on her and will not ever be “master.” After Gretta declines slumbering, Gabriel softens (Joyce 2008). Now that he understands that another man preceded him in Gretta's life, he feels not jealousy, but unhappiness that Michael Furey one time sensed an aching love that he himself has not ever known. Reflecting on his own controlled, passionless life, he recognizes that life is short, and those who depart the world like Michael Furey, with large passion, in detail live more completely than people like himself.

The vacation setting of Epiphany emphasizes the profoundness of Gabriel's tough awakening that concludes the story and the collection. Gabriel knowledge an inward change that makes him analyzes his own life and human life in general. While numerous individual characteristics in Dubliners abruptly stop pursuing what they desire without explanation, this story boasts more exact articulation for Gabriel's actions. Gabriel sees himself as a shaded of an individual, flickering in a world in which the living and the dead meet. Though in his talk at the evening serving ...