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The Dead (short story)

"The Dead" is the final short story in the 1914 collection Dubliners by
"The Dead"
James Joyce. The other stories in the collection are shorter, whereas at
15,952 words, "The Dead" is almost long enough to be described as a Author James Joyce
novella. Country Ireland
Language English
The story deals with themes of love and loss as well as raising questions
about the nature of the Irish identity. Genre(s) Short story
Published in Dubliners
Media type Print (hardback
Contents and paperback)
Publication date 1914
Characters
Plot summary Preceded by "Grace"

Reception
Adaptations
Further reading
References
External links

Characters
Gabriel Conroy – the main character of the story.
Kate Morkan and Julia Morkan – Gabriel and Mary Jane's aunts. They
are elderly sisters who throw a party every year during Christmas time.
Mary Jane Morkan – niece of Kate and Julia Morkan.
Lily – the caretaker's daughter.
Gretta Conroy – Gabriel's wife.
Molly Ivors – a long-time friend of Gabriel, who is very patriotic about
Ireland.
Mr Browne – only Protestant guest at the party.
Freddy Malins – an alcoholic and friend of Gabriel Conroy.
Mrs Malins — Freddy Malins' mother.
Bartell D'Arcy – a famous tenor.
Patrick Morkan – the deceased brother of Kate and Julia (Mary Jane's
father). He famously rode a mill horse that led him in circles around the
statue of King William III in Dublin.
Michael Furey - Gretta's young love who died after waiting outside her
window in the cold.
Gabriel Conroy, Gretta Conroy, Kate and Julia Morkan, and Bartell d'Arcy 15 Usher's Island, the house once
are all alluded to in James Joyce's later work, Ulysses, though no character partly rented by Joyce’s great aunts
from "The Dead" makes a direct appearance in the novel. which was the model for "the dark
gaunt house on Usher's Island", the
principal setting for the story
Plot summary

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The story centres on Gabriel Conroy, a professor and part-time book

reviewer, and explores the relationships he has with his family and friends.
Gabriel and his wife, Gretta, arrive late to an annual Christmas party hosted
by his aunts, Kate and Julia Morkan, who eagerly receive him. After a
somewhat awkward encounter with Lily, the caretaker's daughter, Gabriel
goes upstairs and joins the rest of the party attendees. Gabriel worries
about the speech he has to give, especially because it contains academic
references that he fears his audience will not understand. When Freddy
Malins arrives drunk, as the hosts of the party had feared, Aunt Kate asks
King William Statue, Dame Street,
Gabriel to make sure he is all right.
Dublin
As the party moves on, Gabriel is confronted by Miss Ivors, an Irish
nationalist, about his publishing a weekly literary column in the Unionist newspaper The Daily Express. She teases
him as a "West Briton," that is, a supporter of English political control of Ireland. Gabriel recalls that he gets 15
shillings a week and "the books he received for review were almost more welcome than the paltry cheque". He thinks
this charge is highly unfair, but fails to offer a satisfactory rejoinder. The encounter ends awkwardly, which bothers
Gabriel the rest of the night. He becomes more disaffected when he tells his wife of the encounter and she expresses an
interest in returning to visit her childhood home of Galway. The music and party continues, but Gabriel retreats into
himself, thinking of the snow outside and his impending speech.

Dinner begins, with Gabriel seated at the head of the table. The guests discuss music and the practices of certain
monks. Once the dining has died down, Gabriel thinks once more about the snow and begins his speech, praising
traditional Irish hospitality, observing that "we are living in a sceptical...thought-tormented age,"[1] and referring to
Aunt Kate, Aunt Julia and Mary Jane as the Three Graces. The speech ends with a toast, and the guests sing "For they
are jolly gay fellows."

The party was winding down, and as the guests filter out and Gabriel prepares to leave, he finds his wife standing,
apparently lost in thought, at the top of the stairs. From another room, Bartell D'Arcy singing "The Lass of Aughrim"
can be heard. The Convoys left and Gabriel is excited, for it has been a long time since he and Gretta have had a night
in a hotel to themselves. When they arrived at the hotel, Gabriel's aspirations of passionate lovemaking are
conclusively dashed by Gretta's lack of interest. He presses her about what is bothering her, and she admits that she is
"thinking about that song, The Lass of Aughrim."[2] She admits that it reminds her of someone, a young man named
Michael Furey, who had courted her in her youth in Galway. He used to sing The Lass of Aughrim for her. Furey died
at seventeen, early in their relationship, and she had been very much in love with him. She believes that it was his
insistence on coming to meet her in the winter and the rain, while already sick, that killed him. After telling these
things to Gabriel, Gretta falls asleep. At first, Gabriel is shocked and dismayed that there was something of such
significance in his wife's life that he never knew about. He ponders the role of the countless dead in living people's
lives, and observes that everyone he knows, himself included, will one day only be a memory. He finds in this fact a
profound affirmation of life. Gabriel stands at the window, watching the snow fall, and the narrative expands past him,
edging into the surreal and encompassing the entirety of Ireland. As the story ends, we are told that "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."[3]

Reception
Dan Barry of The New York Times called "The Dead" "just about the finest short story in the English language" on the
centennial of Dubliners.[4] T. S. Eliot called it one of the greatest short stories ever written.[5] Joyce biographer and
critic Richard Ellmann wrote, "In its lyrical, melancholy acceptance of all that life and death offer, 'The Dead' is a
linchpin in Joyce's work."[6] Cornell University Joyce scholar Daniel R. Schwarz described it as "that magnificent short
novel of tenderness and passion but also of disappointed love and frustrated personal and career expectations."[7]

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Adaptations
"The Dead" was adapted as a one-act play of the same name by Hugh Leonard in 1967.[8]

In 1987 it was adapted into the film The Dead directed by John Huston, starring Anjelica Huston as Gretta Conroy and
Donal McCann as Gabriel Conroy.[9]

In 1999 it was adapted into a Broadway musical by Richard Nelson and Shaun Davey, which won a Tony Award for
Best Book of a Musical.[10] The original production starred Christopher Walken as Gabriel Conroy.

Joyce Carol Oates's 1973 story "The Dead" makes many allusions to Joyce's story.[11]

In 2019, the story was adapted into a Bengali film named Basu Poribar starring Soumitra Chatterjee and Aparna
Sen.[12]

Further reading
Bowen, Zach (1974). Musical Allusions in the Works of James Joyce: Early Poetry Through Ulysses. (https://book
s.google.com/books?id=srr_rtOEx5YC&printsec=frontcover&dq='Musical+Allusions+in+the+Works+of+James+Jo
yce:+Early+Poetry+Through+Ulysses.&ei=l9AOTPa1KJP2MrCbuYsI&cd=1#v=onepage&q&f=false) Albany:
SUNY Press, pp. 11–13, 18–23. ISBN 0-87395-248-0
Maddox, Brenda (1988). Nora – A biography of Nora Joyce, 1988.
O'Dowd, Peadar, "James Joyce's 'The Dead' and its Galway Connections" in Journal of the Galway
Archaeological and Historical Society, Volume 51, 1999, pp. 189–193.

References
1. Joyce, James (1914). Dubliners (https://archive.org/details/dubliners00joyc_4). New York: Penguin Books. p. 204.
ISBN 0-14-018647-6.
2. Joyce, James (1914). Dubliners (https://archive.org/details/dubliners00joyc_4). New York: Penguin Books. p. 219.
ISBN 0-14-018647-6.
3. Joyce, James (1914). Dubliners (https://archive.org/details/dubliners00joyc_4) (Penguin Classics ed.). New York:
Penguin Books. p. 225. ISBN 0-14-018647-6.
4. Barry, Dan. "Singular Collection, Multiple Mysteries" (https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/27/books/honoring-james-
joyces-dubliners-published-100-years-ago.html). nytimes.com. The New York Times. Retrieved 28 June 2018.
5. "An Exploration of 'The Dead' " (http://www.joycesdublin.ie/). Joyce's Dublin. UCD Humanities Institute. Retrieved
23 June 2015.
6. Ellmann, Richard (1982). James Joyce (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 252. ISBN 0-19-503103-2.
7. Schwarz, Daniel (1994). "Introduction: Biographical and Historical Contexts" in "The Dead". Boston: Bedford
Books of St. Martin's Press. p. 19. ISBN 0-312-08073-5.
8. Irish Playography entry for Hugh Leonard [1] (http://www.irishplayography.com/play.aspx?playid=3795) retrieved 7
July 2013
9. Film review of The Dead, from RogerEbert.com (http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-dead-1987)
10. Tony Award history, from TonyAwards.com (http://www.tonyawards.com/p/tonys_search)
11. Taylor, Gordon O. (June 1983). "Joyce 'after' Joyce: Oates's 'The Dead' " (http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/litera
ry-criticism/15782457/joyce-after-joyce-oatess-dead). Southern Review. 19 (3): 596. Retrieved 27 July 2015.
12. [2] (https://www.thestatesman.com/entertainment/bengali_cinema/basu-paribar-review-soul-searching-journey-15
02747201.html)

External links
Annotated hypertext version. The Dead (http://www.mendele.com/WWD/WWDdead.html) Worldwide Dubliners
Homepage (http://www.mendele.com/WWD/home.html)

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The Dead (https://librivox.org/search?title=Dead&author=Joyce&reader=&keywords=&genre_id=0&status=all&

project_type=either&recorded_language=&sort_order=catalog_date&search_page=1&search_form=advanced)
public domain audiobook at LibriVox
SparkNotes: Dubliners: "The Dead" (http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/dubliners/section15.rhtml) SparkNotes (http://w
ww.sparknotes.com/about/)
Symbolism of the Snow (http://www.noveltysense.com/2011/05/analysis-of-dead-james-joyces-symbolic.html)
Joyce's Dublin: An Exploration of The Dead (http://www.joycesdublin.ie/)
Joyce's Dublin, a selection of podcasts, interviews, and contextual material (held in UCD repositories and
elsewhere) in relation to James Joyce's short story "The Dead". (https://digital.ucd.ie/view/ivrla:33600) A UCD
Digital Library Collection.
Michael Bodkin (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6830) at Find a Grave

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