James Joyce the Dead

Context:

Written in 1907 when Joyce was in Rome- he was frustrated with life in Ireland and exiled himself to Italy (personal context) It is the longest out of all his stories and can be considered as a novella.

Autobiographical –

• Gabriel is a representation of Joyce – writes book reviews for The Daily Express.
• Like Joyce, Gabriel expresses his disdain for west country provinciality and for the Gaelic League, represented by the argument he had with Miss Molly.
• Gretta is a representation of Nora Barnicle, because she was courted by Sonny Bodkin or Michael in the story and did suffer a disease (tuberculosis) and died after singing to Gretta.
  After finding out Joyce did get jealous and sad
• Joyce’s family would go to a Christmas Party at Usher’s Island where Joyce’s aunt lived.

Short summary of the story:

The story takes place at the Misses Morkan’s annual party ( funny how its “Misses” when Julia and Kate are both described as elderly women to Gabriel- shows the result to unmarried women during the society.) in Usher’s island ( located in Dublin). They have a good time and then Gabriel has a dance with Miss Ivor (an Irish nationalist) and end up having an argument about Irish identity. The party ends and Gabriel sees his wife standing near the top of the stairs listening to a song. The highest point of the story is when Gabriel discovers Gretta’s past – the love life and how Michael died for her and he gets depressed and feels insignificant.

Character Profiles:

Gabriel- sees himself as a “ludicrous figure, acting as a pennyboy for his aunts, a nervous well-meaning sentimentalist, orating to vulgarians, and idealising his own clownish lusts, the pitiable fatuous fellow had he caught a glimpse of in the mirror” (221) He is paralysed due to his denial of and lack of interest in the Irish- catholic culture. He says that “Irish is not my language”

He wears galoshes- fashionable in Europe but not known in Ireland

Gretta – Gabriel’s wife. Don’t really know much about her until the end of the story when she reveals her past love life. She reminds Gabriel about how death is inevitable and reminds him of Julia’s impending death.