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“Kate and Julia, after the death of their brother Pat, had left the house in Stoney Batter and taken Mary Jane, their only niece, to live with them in the dark, gaunt house on Usher's Island.”
This is the first description that the reader gets of the Morkans’ estate. Joyce’s use of the word “gaunt,” which means grim or desolate in appearance, is significant because it has an undeniably negative connotation. It is a jarring way to describe the location of a dinner party and it contributes to the text’s somber tone. It also matches the descriptions of Julia Morkan, Gabriel’s elderly aunt and owner of the estate, because she is described as a haggard old woman.
“Mary Jane waited on her pupils and saw that they got the best slices and Aunt Kate and Aunt Julia opened and carried across from the piano bottles of stout and ale for the gentlemen and bottles of minerals for the ladies. There was a great deal of confusion and laughter and noise, the noise of orders and counter-orders, of knives and forks, of corks and glass-stoppers. Gabriel began to carve second helpings as soon as he had finished the first round without serving himself. Everyone protested loudly so that he compromised by taking a long draught of stout for he had found the carving hot work. Mary Jane settled down quietly to her supper but Aunt Kate and Aunt Julia were still toddling round the table, walking on each other's heels, getting in each other's way and giving each other unheeded orders.”
One of Joyce’s many skills as an author is his ability to create an immersive ambiance in his fiction. Joyce wrote Dubliners in order to offer a realistic depiction of the Irish middle class in early twentieth-century Dublin. His sensory attention to detail as he describes the dinner table allows the reader to really envision the scene to such a degree that one feels like another guest at Julia, Kate, and Mary Jane’s table.
“The morning was still dark. A dull, yellow light brooded over the houses and the river; and the sky seemed to be descending. It was slushy underfoot; and only streaks and patches of snow lay on the roofs, on the parapets of the quay and on the area railings. The lamps were still burning redly in the murky air and, across the river, the palace of the Four Courts stood out menacingly against the heavy sky.”
Here, Joyce describes the snowy Dublin streets as the party guests begin to leave the Morkans’ estate. He juxtaposes the cold snow with the warmth of the street lamps in order to create a sensory experience. The passage has a moody, somber tone which is achieved through words with a negative connotation such as “dark,” “brooded,” and “menacingly.” The tone of this passage anticipates the following scene in which Gabriel stares out into the snow while contemplating death.
