THE DEAD. Looking into a Broad Perspective of the Short Story The Dead. By: Maria Shahid Summer Assignment Advance Placement Language and Composition School of Science Technology June 2014 The Dead is such a exceptional story by James Joyce in which he celebrates both the dead and the living. He uses something as simple and concrete as snow to synthesize between the two. The book finishes him connecting the both "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." The Dead evolves around Gabriel Conroy and his wife Gretta and their relationship being so close yet so far. Gabriel " longed to be master of her …show more content…
Gabriel feels betrayed by his soul mate who still fantasizes about her first lover rather than her husband. He feels as if his wife was never loyal to him but then he realizes that he was not exactly loyal either. He was not there when she needed him and never exactly gave her a memory to cherish. He was never a husband nor a friend to her. they had just a namely relationship rather than one being filled with memories, joys and love. They were practically strangers labeled as husband and wife. Also he understands that life should be cherished because we only get one shot at it and it should be lived as a tribute to yourself and should be ended with a legacy left behind. He intersects life and death. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried." which explains to us that the dead are celebrated just as the alive are. what determines if your legacy lives on is how you live life. Joyce had a pretty solid idea when he talked about these two themes. He alos used a lot of allegorical symbols throughout the book. For the instance " A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward." The window here is a allegory that means Gabriel looking in the mere future and a reflection onto the future, the present or the