Dubliners is marked by a heavy emphasis on death and the reflection of life. The “Dead” at the end of the book, which acts as a counterpart to the “Sisters,” reaffirms the themes of poverty, political divide, paralysis, religious fervor, and transience. The novel starts with the macabre sight of a priest dead in his casket and ends with snow blanketing the living and deceased. Death has become universalized, showing that the end is inevitable.
Gabriel’s “soul” “swoons (slowly)” as he meditates on the poignantly quiet night. The certainty that death will come to all of us is what brings people together. Snow blankets Ireland and it falls “on the living as well as the dead,” thus removing all differences between humans.
The last paragraph of “The Dead”, opens with the recurring gnomonic figure of a man gazing out of a window. He is framed in uncertainty and watching his life from outside. The gnomon, a ghostly image of a form missing, is an idea that anchors Dubliners. It reflects the modernist feeling of being lost, unable to understand the hallucinatory universe around you. The stories are often marked by a missing information or ellipsis. It creates an esoteric, inconclusive feeling, for both the protagonists and readers. Gabriel has this experience in “The Dead”, when he finds out that Gretta had been hiding her tragic romance from him, rather than being his first love.
Gabriel’s insecurity is brought into sharp focus by the failures to communicate that are prevalent throughout Dubliners. The Morkans’ dinner party, with the awkward exchanges between Lily & Miss Ivors – and the subsequent argument with her – led to a realisation of the distance Gabriel felt from Gretta. Gabriel’s illusionary romance is shattered when he discovers that Gretta was thinking of Michael Furey, not Gabriel. The couple feels like they are in two worlds. This distance creates a feeling of separation, forcing Gabriel to think about his role in Gretta’s life.
Gabriel has an epiphany while staring out of the window, watching the snow fall silently. He suddenly sees his life in a new light. He sees himself as nothing more than a shadow, a ghost who lingers in life but doesn’t really live. In fact, he has become more dead that Michael Furey. Michael Furey’s memory remains bright in the wife’s mind and continues to affect the living. Gabriel is now aware that the distinction he declared earlier between living and dead was in fact false. Michael Furey lives on in a way that he never will. He will join the rest of the dead in the ice and become buried.
This passage has a distinct Irish soft voice. There is a slurred, soft, and slow movement of the language as well as whispers that resemble snow falling. It creates a quiet intensity, and all actions and thoughts are hushed. In a world of diluted reality, he is watching everything “softly”, “faintly”, and in a state of mute consciousness that hovers between sleep and wakefulness. The darkness of the nighttime underscores the surreal nature of the moment, as he hovers in that ephemeral space between life and mortality. This is highlighted by the repetition of dark tones – “the silver and dark flakes,” “the central plain,” “the dark mutinous Shannon wave.”
The repeated use of “falling” in the passage, including “falling obliquely,” ‘falling softly,” & ‘faintly” creates an almost oppressive sense of deposition. Even though the individual flakes of snow fall softly, they create a blanket “that lies thickly” across the land. This heaviness can be felt through the accumulations of soft patterns. Joyce suggests that all individuals are fundamentally alone, but paradoxically, they’re united by their isolation.
Gabriel, who accepts his death passively, does have a momentary glimmer as he thinks, “Maybe the time had come to begin his journey westward.” It’s a hint that Gabriel might change his mind, embrace the present and let go of the deadening rituals of his past. These are immortalized by the Morkans’ party, those monotonous, repetitive rituals, which the horse circles around the mill year after year. Snow, which is rare even for January, can’t last forever. Life itself, like snow, is also transient.
