The Dead

“He was undecided about the lines from Robert Browning, for he feared they would be above the heads of his hearers.”

Gabriel frets about his speech, and the nature of his anxiety provides insight into his character. He is concerned that his literary references will not be understood by his audience, suggesting that he tends toward arrogance and adopts a patronizing nature rather than rewrite his speech. Gabriel never considers changing his words. Instead, he just worries that his words will not be understood. Adapting to the circumstances never crosses his mind.

“Freddy Malins exploded, before he had well reached the climax of his story, in a kink of high-pitched bronchitic laughter.”

Freddy’s bawdy laughter cuts across the room and dominates the party. Amid his laughter, however, is a hint of tragedy. The sound of his laugh is boisterous and humorous but also “bronchitic” (382), suggesting that Freddy has bronchitis or some other breathing condition. An expression of joy is marked by the suggestion of ill health, revealing the darkness that lurks beneath the surface level of the party.

“To say you’d write for a paper like that. I didn’t think you were a West Briton.”

The accusation of being a “West Briton” (384)—an Irish person who retains a British mindset post-Irish independence—hurts Gabriel in particular because it targets his identity. Gabriel may not be in touch with his Irish nationalist side, but he resent the implication that this makes him any less Irish. Gabriel conceives of himself as an Irish man, and an accusation which suggests otherwise undermines his sense of self.

“Those were the days, he said, when there was something like singing to be heard in Dublin.”

At the dinner table, the guests discuss the opera. There is a general consensus that the opera singers of the past were more talented than those of the present. The guests dwell in this nostalgia, obsessing so much over their past memories that they seem unable to enjoy anything in the present. The past is revered as a pure and brilliant place, making everything contemporary seem worse by comparison. The guests’ tendency to look to the past limits their ability to enjoy the present.

“The coffin, said Mary Jane, is to remind them of their last end.”

The monks sleep in a coffin to remind them of their own mortality. To the monks, the coffin is a symbol of their inevitable death, and they deliberately subject themselves to this symbolism as an act of penance. The dinner party performs a similar role for Gabriel. At the party, he is reminded of his own mortality. After he picks apart Gretta’s memories later, he lays on the bed like the monks laid in their coffins and obsesses over the living and the dead.

“But we are living in a skeptical and, if I may use the phrase, a thought-tormented age: and sometimes I fear that this new generation, educated or hypereducated as it is, will lack those qualities of humanity, of hospitality, of kindly humor which belonged to an older day.”

Gabriel’s fear is a fear of himself. He is so obsessed with the past that he worries that the traditions and cultures of the past—themselves coated in heavy nostalgia—seem impossible to replicate in the present. Gabriel worries that he cannot measure up to the past, so he externalizes this anxiety and applies it to all Ireland as a society. Gabriel makes his own fears into fears about his country, wrangling with his self-doubts by assuring himself that the entire country is experiencing a similar condition.

“He could not see her face but he could see the terra-cotta and salmon-pink panels of her skirt which the shadow made appear black and white. It was his wife.”

The more Gabriel studies his wife, the more he begins to realize that there is an unknowable quality to her. At first, he looks at her and sees her cloaked in shadows. He has to assure himself that this is “his wife” (402) by stating it explicitly. Gabriel initially finds this newness exciting but, by the time he returns to the hotel, he begins to understand the tragic implications. There is always a part of Gretta which will remain in the shadows.

“The blood went bounding along his veins; and the thoughts went rioting through his brain, proud, joyful, tender, valorous.”

Gabriel’s initial reaction to his wife’s demeanor is excitement. He feels a sense of lust and desire, so much so that positive emotions rush through him. He can barely contain the emotions and simply lists them, feeling “proud, joyful, tender, valorous” (404). This riot of emotions is presented in such a way to illustrate how Gabriel is wrestling with the exactitude of his feelings. He does not know quite how he feels but—in this moment—he is certain that he feels good.

“But the man could not hear with the noise of the furnace. It was just as well. He might have answered rudely.”

Gabriel’s memory of Gretta involves her saying something to a man who says nothing in return. The memory is treasured by Gabriel because of its silence. Nothing being said is preferable because, had the man replied rudely, he might have shattered the pristine brilliance of the moment. Instead, Gabriel can fill in the silence with his own ideas and beliefs. He can project his emotion on to the memory, creating something unique, just as he projects his idea of Gretta on to his wife while not necessarily knowing the truth about her. When Gretta speaks about Michael Furey, she breaks the silence and shatters Gabriel’s understanding of her.

“We have light enough from the street.”

Gabriel and Gretta’s exterior, public lives are only visible due to the light from the street. Rather than understanding or knowing each other, they only understand the parts of themselves that are cast in light from the outside. The light functions as a metaphor for how, in private, they lack the light to truly see one another in their entirety. Just as Gabriel never knew about his wife’s relationship with Michael Furey and how it shaped her life, he can only glimpse her true self using the light which filters in from outside. That light is enough, but it is not everything. Gabriel and Gretta remain mostly in darkness. 

“He was in such a fever of rage and desire that he did not hear her come from the window.”

Gabriel is surprised and then furious when he learns about Michael Furey. He keeps these raging emotions to himself, hiding them from his wife. There is a deep irony in Gabriel being angry that his wife has kept something so important from him while, at the same time, he hides his own burning rage. Gabriel is guilty of the exact behavior which, when done by Gretta, makes him so furious.

“While he had been full of memories of their secret life together, full of tenderness and joy and desire, she had been comparing him in her mind with another. A shameful consciousness of his own person assailed him.”

Gabriel is ashamed that he does not truly know his wife. He is ashamed that his own petty lusts and desires seem so ridiculous next to her grief. Yet rather than console his wife, he tends to his own emotions and leaves her to cry on the bed. Gabriel wrestles with his shame, but he cannot move beyond his own emotional selfishness, thinking only about how Gretta’s memory affects him rather than how it has shaped her whole life.

“He watched her while she slept, as though he and she had never lived together as man and wife.”

Gretta’s revelation about Michael Furey prompts Gabriel to reconsider the entire nature of their marriage. The importance of Michael’s role in Gretta’s life seemingly cannot be understated, yet Gabriel was certain that he knew Gretta better than anyone else. The revelation has revealed to him the emptiness of the marriage, how he has convinced himself that their relationship was deeper, more profound than it truly was. Gabriel’s pain is personal; he is disgusted that he was so certain that he knew his wife when, in truth, he has never truly understood her.