the dead

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Gabriel Conroy in the novella “The Dead” in the masterpiece novel The Dubliners by James Joyce goes through an incredible transformation. Gabriel starts out as a self-absorbed, egotistic towards those around him, and especially his wife. He is constantly worried about what those around him think of him and his superiority over people. Gabriel treats his wife, Gretta, like a child, and views his relationship with her only through himself. However, through the confession from his wife about her ex-lover Michael Furey, Gabriel has an epiphany that changes his entire outlook on life. At the end of the novella, Gabriel’s “generous tears” reflect a changed and better man. Gabriel, throughout the story, views himself as superior to those around him. The first quote Gabriel has in the novella, he states, “I’ll engage they did, said Gabriel, but they forget that my wife here takes three mortal hours to dress herself” (153). Gabriel dictates superiority over women twice here. The first time is expecting Miss Kate and Miss Julia to worry about his arrival about them arriving because he is so important to them. The second instance is directed towards his wife in that she takes so long to get ready, as if she were but a child to him. Just moments later, Gabriel supports this narcissistic claim again: “Gabriel smiled at the three syllables she (Lily) had given his surname and glanced at her” (154). The smile indicates pleasure in Lily’s accent which is indicative in her lower class that Gabriel, something he prides himself with. To expand upon this socio-economic hierarchy that Gabriel is so fond of, he later thinks, “The indelicate clacking of the men’s heels and the shuffling of their soles reminding him that their grade of culture differed ... ... middle of paper ... ...s no longer the face for which Michael Furey had braved death” (193) and one can see that Gabriel knows that Gretta did not die in the full glory of some passion, but is rather withering dismally with age. Gabriel’s generous tears were those of sorrow and sadness towards his wife, which is completely contradictory to his aforementioned personality. Gabriel, stuck in his self-absorbed and narcissistic mind, had his eyes opened by his wife Gretta and started to feel emotions towards others. Gabriel heard the story of Furey and his wife and realized that he is not unlike anyone else through the epiphany of death. Death is inevitable for Gabriel, Gretta, Julia, and anyone else he has come into contact with. Gabriel is a changed and better man by the end of the novella. Just as snow fell outside Gabriel’s window, it covered the ground in which Michael Fury was buried.

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