James Joyce's "The Dead"

"The Dead," is a story about a group of family and friends coming together during the holiday season for their annual dinner party. Gabriel Conroy is one of the main characters who is a scholar that is suppose to make a speech at the dinner party in regards to his aunts who are hosting the party. However, he is quite nervous the whole time because he is a scholar and is worried about speaking in front of people and them being able to understand the message he is trying to convey. His wife, Gretta, is also another main character and oddly enough throughout most of the story they seem to avoid each other while Gabriel has several other encounters with other female guests at the party. Even though the story is set around this dinner party that Julia and Kate Morkan, (Gabriel's aunts) are having and is supposed to be a happy occasion, there are several mentions of death in this story besides the title.

Some examples that stood out the most to me were:
pg. 1961- Mr. Browne, Mary Jane, and Aunt Kate talking about how the monks sleep in their coffins.
pg. 1973- Gabriel thinking about what would happen when his Aunt Julia died.
pg. 1974- Gabriel thinking about the snow covering Ireland and falling on the coffins of the dead.

In the midst of having the holiday dinner party, the real story seemed to lie in Gabriel and Gretta. Towards the end of the story, after listening the song Mr. D'Arcy was singing and becoming emotional, Gretta told Gabriel about her teenage love. His name was Michael Furey and Gretta felt like it was her fault he had died because he was very ill and stood outside in rain waiting for her before she was supposed to leave town, and after she had left she received the news that he had passed. She had been harboring this guilt inside for a long time and when seeing how distraught Gretta was over this man, Gabriel couldn't help but feel that she was still in love with him and maybe as her husband, he had never fully loved her the way Michael had. Michael and Gabriel are names that have significant meaning because they are angels in the Bible. Michael is the Archangel and basically has the most power under God. Gabriel is an angel too but he is subservient to Michael. I think this makes sense in the book because Gabriel was always second in Gretta's heart next to Michael.