“The Living and the Dead
GUIDED ANALYSIS MILLENNIUM 2 P. 191
1. Focus on the content.
• The revelation of Gretta’s hidden memory from the past is the cause of Gabriel’s
‘epiphany’, the process of self-revelation and transformation that takes place in
Gabriel. Complete the following sentences with words taken from the text.
a. (ll.1 – 6) While Gretta is lying on the bed sleeping, Gabriel discovers what poor
part …
•
he had played in their married life.
b. (ll. 6 – 12) He looks at his wife and jealousy fades away giving space to a feeling of
pity while he considers what she …
•
must have been, at the time of her girlish beauty.
c. (ll. 13 – 18) He realizes that it is better to die for a passion than to ….
• fade and wither dismally with age.
d. (ll. 19 – 27) While he realizes how much he loves his wife, time becomes
inconsistent; he loses contact with the world of the living but his soul reaches ...
• that region where the vast hosts of the dead dwell.
e. (ll. 28 -39) The snowflakes lightly tapping upon the window-panes bring Gabriel
back to physical reality, then Gabriel’s soul loses consciousness as he hears the
snow ...
• falling faintly through the universe ... upon all the living and the dead.
2.
Music/song and snow are two important symbols in this short story.
Explain how they link the characters in the story and how music comes from
the past , whereas snow is timeless and looks ahead to the future.
• The song “The Lass of Aughrim” sung at the Morkans’ house when Gabriel and
Gretta are about to live comes from Gretta’s past and awakens memories of a
boy she once knew. Gretta’s withdrawal into the past fills Gabriel’s heart first
with jealousy and frustration and then with melancholy. While he meditates on
past and present, on the living and the dead, snow starts falling over the
country and unites Gretta and Gabriel’s past, present and future in a close union
with nature.
WRITING NES
4. Define the themes and features of James Joyce’s “Dubliners”, also considering
the two passages from “The Dead” you have read (maximum 180 words)
Joyce’s Irish background went into his first work, “Dubliners” (1914), a collection
of fifteen stories about people living in Dublin: its theme is “paralysis”, that is,
their inability to overcome the limitations of the social context they have to live
in. In “I Think He Died for Me, She Answered”, the first of the two excerpts from
“The Dead”, we can see how Joyce’s style still reflects the naturalistic tradition, his
prose in fact is made up of quite detailed, well organized sentences and of a wellexpressed sense of place and time. Narration, dialogue and description are the
mode of the first passage, while in the second passage, “The Living and the
Dead”, realism is replaced by symbolism and Gretta’s point of view is followed by
Gabriel’s inner thoughts which wander between past and present. The closing
paragraph is rich in alliteration and repetition; rhythm and language are very
evocative and produce a symbolical unity between the living and the dead. (161
words).