James Joyce

1
James Joyces The Dead

• A Culmination and a Cornerstone

2
Common ElementsHow is this story similar to
other stories in Dubliners?
3
The Sisters

• Like Eliza and Nannie in the first story in the
  collection, Julia and Kate are two sisters around
  whom a large part of the story circulates.
• Women in both stories seem to have limited
  opportunities. (All the sisters are spinsters,
  and Mary Jane and Lily seem destined to be as
  well. Lily can only make subsistence earnings
  living off the family.)
• The church partly to blame for the paralysis of
  Father Flynn likewise holds the Morken sisters
  back in their musical career.

4
An Encounter

• Gabriels querying of Lily loosely suggests a
  foray into an inappropriate subject with Lily, or
  at least her response makes it seem so.
• Gabriel would like to escape the party and go
  walking in the snow (like the miching boys).
• Mention of both the Catholics and the Protestants
  in both stories (priest and the Swaddlers in An
  Encounter and the Pope, a priest and Trinity
  University a Protestant institution in The
  Dead.)

5
Araby

• Michael Fureys love for Gretta is romantic like
  that of the unnamed narrator for Mangans sister
  in Araby.
• Michael Furey, whose name signifies a passion
  that burns out quickly, made a quest to Gretta
  (like the boys quest to Araby), despite his ill
  health and the bad weather.
• Gretta was leaving Galway to go to the convent,
  just as Mangans sister cannot attend the bazaar
  because she must go on a retreat with her church
  (church as oppressor of true living).

6
Eveline

• Both Eveline and Gabriel are trapped behind
  windows, longing for veritable escapes.
• The wistful preoccupation with what could have
  been will surely be a part of Evelines adulthood
  much as it is a part of Grettas.
• Both women had a chance at a much different
  existence and did not/could not take it.
• A death in both cases is largely responsible for
  preventing love.

7
The Boarding House

• Julia, Kate, Mary Jane, and Lily live in a
  boarding house, though we get the idea that it is
  a place of much greater propriety than Mrs.
  Mooneys boarding house.
• Again readers are lead to see the limited
  opportunities for women (especially if they are
  not being supported by a husband or the church).
• Both stories highlight a son who is a hard case
  (Jack Mooney in The Boarding House and Freddy
  Malins in The Dead.)

8
A Little Cloud

• Gabriel in many ways is like Little Chandler he
  is basically a clean-living, good person who
  feels in the end that he is unfulfilled in his
  life and in his marriage.
• Both men understand that the confines of Dublin
  and Ireland are limiting.

9
Counterparts

• Freddy Malins is a slightly more upright version
  of Farrington.
• Circular imagery pervades both stories
  (Farringtons watch and coins and his general
  cycle of living the traditions involved in the
  Morkens Christmas feast, the quadrilles which
  is actually a box step, but begins where it
  ends, the story of Johnny the horse, and the
  idea of life and death connected to the seasons)
• The third person narrator shows some detachment
  in each story by using general terms at times for
  major characters. (Farrington is The man
  through the first part of the story, underscoring
  his detachment from his own life and Mr. Alleyne
  is the head and the skull. When Gabriel is
  watching Gretta in the stairwell while Mr. Darcy
  sings The Lass of Aughrim she is described as
  a woman in the shadow and a symbol of
  something which helps to foreshadow the idea
  that her husband Gabriel doesnt really know her
  that well, despite years of marriage.)

10
A Painful Case

• A love-triangle exists in each story in which the
  husband is unaware (at least until a point).
• The idea of lost love and what could have been
  leads to the epiphany is both stories.
• A lover has literally died (while others in the
  love-triangle are figuratively dead).
• The death is part of or caused by the love
  (Michael Furey dies for Gretta, while Mrs. Sinico
  dies of a broken heart.)

11
A Mother

• The Irish National Movement is the most obvious
  connection. (Ms. Ivors hammers politics to
  Gabriel, calling him a West Briton, and seems
  to do little more than spew propaganda and use a
  little token Irish for effect. Mrs. Kearney in
  A Mother tries to capitalize on the Irish
  Revival and on her daughters Irish-sounding
  name.)
• Kathleen Kearney is in both stories! (The story
  revolves around her the first time she appears in
  the collection, and in The Dead she is
  mentioned as one of the people who will accompany
  Ms. Ivors to the Arran Isles in the summer.)
• In both stories Irish culture is shown in
  decline. (In A Mother the sparse attendance at
  the concert, the number of people holding
  paper, and the poor quality of the performers
  reflects this in The Dead Mr. DArcy says all
  the best singers have left Ireland.)