Gabriel's Response

Gabriel's insensitivity blinds him to Gretta's feelings. When the song “The Lass of Aughrim” is played, Gretta is reminded of her previous lover, Michael Furey. Gabriel misreads Gretta's reaction to the song – he thinks, “Perhaps her thoughts had been running with his. Perhaps she felt the impetuous desire that was in him, and then the yielding mood had come upon her” (Joyce 12). Later on, Gretta's revelation about Michael Furey to Gabriel is what strikes him to change. Gabriel has an epiphany – he is faced with the revelation that he could never feel the passion and love that Michael Furey felt. Gabriel's “own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world...” (Joyce 13) causing him to become a stranger to himself; he becomes unaware

Lily challenges Gabriel when she produces a defensive statement when he asks her about her love life. Gabriel is unable to handle this “bump in the road”, awkwardly changes the subject, and quickly exits the scene. According to Joyce, Gabriel “was…discomposed by the girl’s bitter and sudden retort [as] it cast a gloom over him…” (179). Similarly Miss Ivors sends him a barrage of questions about his sympathies with Irish culture. Gabriel is unable to respond to these questions appropriately and so he flees the situation by blurting out that he is “sick of [his] own country” (189). Once again, Gabriel becomes disconcerted with a loss of control just like the Morkans are disconcerted when Freddy comes late to the party. Overall, Gabriel and the party mirror each other in that they function off of routine and what is expected and become anxious when things exist outside of their comfort zones.

  The study of Gabriel's character is probably one of the most important aims in James Joyce's The Dead1. What shall we think of him? Is the reader supposed to think little of Gabriel or should he/she even feel sorry for him? This insecurity already implies that the reader gets more and more aware that he/she develops ambivalent feeling towards Gabriel and that his character is presented from various perspectives. Gabriel's conduct appears to be split and seems to represent different red threads in The Dead; it leads the reader through the whole story. Those different aspects in his conduct, and also the way this multicoloured character is presented to the reader, strongly points at the

Unfortunately, the connection that Gabriel feels to his wife is the product of illusion. In reality, he doesn’t know her at all—a fact Joyce alludes to when Gabriel fails to recognize his own wife and sees only, “[a] woman standing near the top of the stairs…” (2192). When Gretta begins to reminisce about a boy from her past, Gabriel’s blanket of illusion is snatched away: “While he had been full of…joy and desire, she had been comparing him in her mind with another” (2197). Facing the reality of his wife’s love for another man, Gabriel now begins to question their entire relationship.

When Robert Matthews, self proclaimed Matthias, Prophet of the God of the Jews, came forth as a zealot promising prosperity and salvation in a time of great social turmoil and upheaval, people latched on to his assurances that they would be leaving behind economic oppression and impoverishment. During this time period between 1820 and 1840, people were so caught up in the urgency of religious zeal that they were desperate for a way to get out. Some historians believe Matthias and his influential, albeit debatably derailed, followers like Elijah Pierson seemed like prime examples of their time. Rather, their newfound religious faction undeniably regressed back to extreme old world practices, like those that occurred during the American Revolution, after Matthias fails to make it in the new world urban economy. Matthias’s search for religious freedom was wrapped up in patriarchal roles and avoidance of modern innovations in living and ideas, pointing his regressions back to the practices of the colonial period.

Gabriel becomes distraught at the revelation of her statement.  Joyce describes Gabriel's anguished state, "Generous tears filled Gabriel's eyes.  He had never felt like that himself towards any woman, but he knew that such a feeling must be love" (Joyce 182).  Gabriel is perplexed as to why, if Gretta loves him so much, she still possesses memories of her first love.  He also wonders why this important detail of Gretta's life was not brought to his attention at an earlier point.  Gabriel's recognition that he has been excluded from what he believes to be the deepest experience of Gretta's life now becomes the deepest experience of his life.  Gretta's reaction to his questions about her first love causes Gabriel to become overwhelmed by Michael Furey's control over him.

"But yet," continued Gabriel, his voice falling into a softer inflection, "there are always in gatherings such as this sadder thoughts that will recur to our minds: thoughts of the past, of youth, of changes, of absent faces that we miss here to-night. Our path through life is strewn with many such sad memories: and were we to brood upon them always we could not find the heart to go on bravely with our work among the living. We have all of us living duties and living affections which claim, and rightly claim, our strenuous endeavors." (214)

In The Dead, James Joyce lets symbolism flow freely throughout his short story. James Joyce utilizes his main characters and objects in The Dead to impress upon his readers his view of Dublin’s crippled condition. Not only does this apply to just The Dead, Joyce’s symbolic themes also exude from his fourteen other short stories that make up the rest of Joyce’s book, Dubliners, to describe his hometown’s other issues of corruption and death that fuel Dublin’s paralysis. After painting this grim picture of Dublin, James Joyce uses it to express his frustration and to explain his realistic view that the only solution to the issues with Dublin depends on a move to the West and towards a new life, rather than

First, the of content Gabriel's speech at the party impressed me a lot. James Joyce, who is a genius writer, is like all other Irish writers, he loveshis

With the technique of imagery it's revealed that Gabriel is a ponderant individual that looks at the negative side of things. The darkness surrounding him in the room shows the negativity he feels upon death. The surroundings of Gabriel reveal his dark thoughts. With the concept of symbolism we see that Gabriel is a very somber individual. We see the symbolization of death, love, mortality, and life in the form of Julia, Fuery, black clothing, and the funeral. Julia represents love or rather the lack of love Gabriel

The river’s freezing waters looked like the best place to be at the moment. Harry’s thoughts were not of a sober man. He didn’t even remember how he came to this very spot on this very bridge. That didn’t matter anyway. What mattered is what he was so tempted to do, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t leave his mother or his sister, Gemma. That’s exactly what the blue-eyed stranger must’ve thought, except he didn’t know about his mother or his sister, yet. So the blue-eyed stranger led him away from his spot on the bridge and towards an empty cab. For what reason, Harry had no clue.

The story is meant to symbolize Gabriel¹s own existence that seems to be an endless cycle where everything merely repeats itself.  Further suporting Gabriel¹s feeling of being a part of a dead society is his need to become closer with nature throughout the story.  He quickly grows tired of the party and wants to go outside into the snow, which he had avoided earlier in the story, for when he enters the party in an attempt to avoid the cold "ironically the lights within seem to illuminate a society that is stuffy and dead rather than warm and alive, and Gabriel soon longs for the cold fresh air?which seems to represent the vitality of nautre." (Walzl 235-236).  To Gabriel nature and the world outside the party exhibit life, which is more credit than he gives his fellow partygoers.

In the passage, “The Dead”, James Joyce reveals about the character’s qualities. James Joyce, the author of the excerpt, allows the reader to get to know the character, Gabriel, by using literary devices. For example, the author uses symbolism and imagery, to reveal so much about him, that Gabriel himself does not know about.

2016 is a very sensitive year for China and U.S. relationship. Should China and the United States cooperation or friction became a really important question between the two biggest economic countries in the global market, China is a newly growth young age economic developing country, and the U.S. as the head of the global market for years, two of them check and balance each other, but actually they should be work more compactness. The United States had been interested in China since 1784, at the end of World war II America “kept China from fragmenting and limited foreign exploitation.” (heritage.org), American and China had an intricacy history which also is a key point of the relationship between this two country. (heritage.org), As the presidential election underway, China’s relationship with America because a campaign issue for decades, both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton indicate their point of view between the relationship with China, Donald Trump now as the newly president of the U.S. who will take over the office on Jan 20 of 2017, some of his positons on the future trades’ plan with China will significantly affect the relationship with China. (uschina). According large among of research, easily shows that China and the U.S. owns many factories and power on the global effect. They both are the permanent member of the United Nations which row a higher level of stands at the United Nations.

In “The Dead” by James Joyce, the author writes about the feelings, thoughts and actions of a man named Gabriel towards his wife. James Joyce uses different literary devices such as imagery, point of view, and diction to reveal his regret and complacent behavior in his matrimony.