The Dead

Description

The Dead is the last story in James Joyce’s collection of stories entitled Dubliners and also the longest piece in the book. Appreciated by critics and often called one of the finest short stories in English literature, The Dead surprises both with its plot and its wonderful, poetic language, so characteristic to Joyce.

The main character of the story is Gabriel Conroy, a professor. At the beginning, he arrives late at the party held by the Morkan sisters to celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany. Then, the story continues with the events at the party as they are experienced by Conroy – the conversations he has before dinner, including a confrontation with an Irish nationalist that will define Conroy’s mood for most of the evening, the music he listens to, the dinner, the snow that has just started to fall and will soon be covering all Ireland, then the end of the party and the night spent with his wife in a hotel.

Though Conroy hopes to spend a passionate night with his wife, Gretta, the woman is way too preoccupied with her thoughts. Conroy insists to find out what is bothering Gretta, who tells him about a man she was very much in love with when she was young, but who died before they could get married. Gretta soon falls asleep and Gabriel contemplates the important role that the memory of dead people plays in our life and how every one of us will eventually become a memory.

This beautiful short story influenced many authors, including Joyce Carol Oates, and it was adapted for the stage and for the big screen, too. It was first staged in 1967 as a one-act play, then it was made into a movie first in 1987, with Anjelica Huston in the role of Gretta, an it was also adapted as a musical that won a Tony Award.
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