I have this problem. I have paper to write for my European lit. class and I want to write it on “The Dead.” I just finished reading Modernism’s Body, analysing sex in Joyce’s works, which was interesting, just not enough dealing with “The Dead” though. I really like the imagery and stuff, but I can’t find too much on that. Does anyone have any interesting aspects of “The Dead” that I could look into? I’m just looking for something to start with so that I can go back to the library and research. Thanks!
PS - I know someone’s going to write in and say, “Straight Dope isn’t a cheat for writing a paper,” so save it. I just want and idea for a paper, a starting point. I’m not looking for someone to write the paper for me.
One thing you can focus on is the character of Gabriel and his interactions with others in the story. Notice how he is frequently misunderstood in what he is saying. Pay spcial attention to the ending in which Gabriel is reminiscing about his life with his wife, but then discovers that she has been thinking about somone she was in love with as a girl.
Joyce is making a comment about human isolation and how each person is ultimately alone, even at a party or while sharing a moment with a lifelong partner. No one can ever truly and completely no another person.
You can also think about how this theme relates to the title.
I don’t want to give you too much anlysis, but if you focus on Gabriel and his failures to connect with other characters you’ll do all right.
This is a very subtle story, so don’t look so much at the content of the dialogue but at the dynamics of character interactions.
The story is in third person, but filtered mostly through Gabriel’s eyes; look at all the descriptions of his wife (whose name embarrassingly escapes me right now) and see what kind of themes emerge.
That line about “There were a few light taps at the window” gives me chills every time.
Slight hijack: Has anyone seen the film of this story, starring Anjelica Huston as what’s-her-name? (Gretta?) I haven’t seen it, and I’m extremely skeptical that any Joyce work could be effectively made into a movie, but I’d be interested to see what other Joyceans have thought of it.
How about traditional religious imagery embedded in it, starting with the phrase “Lily was literally swept off her feet” (this is how is goes, right?)?
I saw it. Wrote a paper on it even, comparing it to the original story. I don’t think it’s as effective as the story. The movie focuses on nearly all the characters, rather than Gabriel, so elements from the story that are tossed in feel amazingly out of place. The hotel room scene? Just completely random. There’s no real reason established to focus in on Gabriel and Gretta and so, no real epiphany. It’s not a bad movie by any means, just lacking in some aspects.
However, I read a few reviews of the movie…every critic who was familiar with the story beforehand thought it was a good attempt, but fell flat. The others thought it was great, so perhaps it would’ve been better not to be familiar with the source.