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James Joyce’s “The Dead” is a tale of love and loss as well as a thoughtful contemplation of Irish identity. It centers around a middle-aged professor named Gabriel Conroy who attends a dinner party with his wife Gretta at his aunts’ estate. It is the final short story in Dubliners and, therefore, can be regarded as a sort of closing statement for the collection as a whole.
The inciting incident in the text occurs when Gabriel and Gretta arrive at the Morkan’s party. The Morkan’s party is the most important setting in the story because it is where the majority of the action takes place. When Gabriel and Gretta cross over the threshold into the Morkan’s front room, they literally and figuratively enter the narrative.
The story’s rising action can be split into two distinct but related sections. The first phase concerns Gabriel’s sense of self and his complicated relationship with control. Gabriel’s restrained behavior, his reputation with his aunts as the nephew who takes care of everything, and the rigid way in which he runs his home mark Gabriel as a man of authority, caution, and control. However, two encounters with women at the party challenge his confidence. Gretta makes Gabriel feel uncomfortable when she pokes fun at his controlling nature, and he is unsettled as he watches his aunts and wife laugh at him. Later in the text, during his dance with Molly Ivors, he faces a barrage of questions about his nonexistent nationalist sympathies, which he does not know how to answer appropriately. Unable to compose a full response, Gabriel blurts out that he is sick of his own country, surprising Molly and himself with his unmeasured response and his loss of control. These examples characterize Gabriel as a controlling and deeply self-conscious man.
The second phase of rising action is perhaps the most important. After completing dinner and delivering a speech to thank his hostesses, Gabriel is surprised to discover that he can not find Gretta. He eventually locates her and witnesses as she stands transfixed, listening to a rendition of “The Lass of Aughrim.” He is confused by his wife’s altered state, which persists as they leave the party and take a cab to their hotel, and longs to understand her strange mood. This, too, highlights Gabriel’s controlling nature because he wishes to be the “master” of his wife's thoughts and feelings.
In the story’s climax, Gretta explains that she is distressed because “The Lass of Aughrim” reminds her of her former love, Micheal Furey, who died when they were young because he stood outside her window in the cold when he was ill. Gabriel is consumed with jealousy, both because his wife had a lover before she knew him and because he does not think he has ever loved anybody enough to die for them.
In the falling action portion of “The Dead,” Gabriel sleepily watches the snowflakes fall against the window in his hotel room in Dublin. As he gazes out the window, he imagines the snow coming down across Ireland, upon every living person and the gravestones of the dead, and the scene reminds him of his own mortality. Gabriel imagines the snow coming down on the grave of Michael Furey and 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.” This epiphany helps Gabriel conclude that it is better to die of passion like Michael Furey than to wither away with age, but it is unclear as to whether or not this idea will lead to any lasting change in Gabriel’s life or marriage.
