Comments about “The Dead”

Comments about “The Dead”

I think that “The Dead” is a story about love, lost loves, and the inability to forget those who have been loved and lost.

After reading the story, I have a view that in “The Dead” Joyce establishes that people are equal, across the board, as human beings and should be treated as such. Throughout the collection the reader gets selective glimpses of characters. I see the most intimate often harsh reality of a character. Over time it is easy for this to make a reader judgmental of people.

“The Dead” is meant to remind readers that they–the readers–are people as well. Joyce makes this fair warning through Gabriel, who sees himself as superior to others. If, in fact, the readers have come to see themselves in some way as superior to the characters in the stories, then Gabriel is a sort of mirror image. I notice this in “the condescending insincerity in Gabriel’s manner”.

“The Dead” takes on in order to take us out of the stories in Dubliners is to show the power of language and how it can be a trap. There is some irony in Gabriel becoming trapped by language, when, given his education, we would assume he would have greater mastery and control over language. The most prominent scene is when Gabriel comes up behind his wife in the “gloom of the hall” and begins to describe her in her “grace and mystery … as if she were a symbol of something”;

In as little as the last few paragraphs, Joyce gives us a much needed feeling of closure that we do not often get in the other stories and essentially tells us that it is now okay to close the back cover on the book. “A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily …”
With Gabriel, I see him as a hopeful man who in reality is broken. I do not think that he has an epiphany at the end of “The Dead.” Obviously, there are plenty who would disagree with me and hold the opposite view.
Gabriel sees the world poetically and not as it really is. The way he recreates things in his mind towards a poetic idealism obscures the way things really are. At the end, he creates a poetic refrain that is accurate in some ways, but Gabriel does not really understand the truth of his situation.
The “descent of their last end” refers to death. The snow is meant to symbolize an inclusion of everything. The snow falls over everything, so everything is united by the snow. Both living and dead are subject to the world around, but Gabriel misses that, even as he alludes to it in his thoughts at the end. He doesn’t really have an epiphany because he doesn’t see himself as he really is — he just thinks he does.
Comments about “Her first ball”

I think this story says to me that time and age is disregarding the past - A step in one direction requires ignorance or forgetting the previous. Not a universal them but at least to Leila and maybe a biographical insight.

“Her First ball” indicates us to think more carefully about our future and that nothing will last forever, ever thing will vanish. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t enjoy our life and keep thinking in future results, that’s wrong we should enjoy our life and we should also consider what will happen to us in the future.

Leila begins rather innocently- she over romanticizes the ball in her youthful illusions. She is the face of youth, and she is not prepared for the cruel future. She almost reaches an epiphany (a realisation of the truth) but is distracted by her idealistic views- when a gentleman asks her to dance. The Author truly captures the innocence of youth in this story.

I think the author have investigated a myriad of influences on her life and work. Underlying themes of sexuality and homoeroticism have become another fertile topic of critical discussion.