The Dead Reading Journal

Joyce takes great measures to present the readers with a joyous, friendly occasion, but careful readers may notice that the occasion is not as warm or inviting as it seems. By obscuring the boundaries that separate life and death, Joyce is criticizing those whose lives are devoid of intimacy, emotional connection, and energy. Through several subtly nuanced descriptions and bits of dialogue, the author undercuts the celebratory nature of the evening. For example, Gretta looks "perished alive" and all evening Gabriel had "a gloom cast over him." Everyone in the room is virtually “dead.” Even the drunkard Freddy, whose exaggerated gestures and words provide some comic relief, is “dead” because although he is living, he’s an utter failure. He fails to be a proper son and his automatic actions and reactions that result from too much drinking fail mechanically as his comments are often inappropriate. He can’t seem to escape his drunken state, with everyone expecting him to turn up “screwed” at the party. Thus, it can be seen that underneath the Aunts’ apparently hearty feast, there is a deeply ironic subtext which suggests that once people reach a certain point in their lives, everyday life becomes routine and regimented.

Perhaps the main character Gabriel is the most prominent example of this in “The Dead.” Gabriel’s lack of connection is heavily suggested throughout the party through his encounters with women. He fails to connect with or understand Lily or Mrs. Ivors, and reaches its climax with his dealing of his wife, Gretta. Readers can sense his lack of spontaneity, as he quotes himself in the after-dinner toast and later in the evening when he considers professing his love for Gretta. Even such "moments of ecstasy" lack all enthusiasm and exhilaration, and ultimately culminates to a negative epiphany. The negative diction he uses even while thinking of his wife as he “strove to restrain himself from breaking out into brutal language about the sottish Malins and his pound. He longed to…crush her body against his, to overmaster her,” suggests that the love Gabriel supposedly feels for his life is a mere desire to overpower her. He also admits that he wanted to “forget the years of their dull existence together and remember only their moments of ecstasy. For the years, he felt, had not quenched his soul or hers.” However, he fails to escape the dull routine due to his realization of his alienation and disconnection from his wife, and through her narration of the past, it is revealed that the only character who seems to have been able to sustain any connection with passion or feeling is the one character in the story who is already dead, Michael Furey, thus the irony. Through subtle melancholic overtones, Joyce is critical of the “dead” society.

To be honest, even when living the hectic life of KMLA, it is hard to forget that we have wonderful friends and teachers around us, and we often don’t find the time to connect with them, to really understand them. Finally entering my last year in KMLA, I fell into a routine – perhaps not as far as a state of paralysis, but KMLA is no longer a new, vivacious environment to me. Somewhere along my three years here, KMLA has become a “been there, done that” kind of place. I saw a little bit of myself in Gabriel. I fell into my own routine here in KMLA and, because of familiarity, become emotionally detached from those around me. Recently, I’ve faced a situation where I failed to understand one of my dear friends. As editor-in-chief of Minjok Herald, I have the power and responsibility to have the final decision on most aspects of the publication. One of my co-workers from the photography crew and friends was in charge of drawing the cover of Minjok Herald. For the sake of efficiency and specialization (and because I don’t know much about design), I like to allow my photography and design crews an extent of independency from my interference. Thus, I trusted they were doing well and since they did not inform me of the progress, I did not ask. Then, one day, my friend asked me for feedback for her final drawing of the cover. I saw that the drawing style was not clean-cut and simple as I wanted and expected it to be, and I told her my opinion. She was clearly upset and started throwing angry words at me via chat. I was surprised by her reaction. She asked me for feedback, I gave it to her; and in order to prevent her efforts from going to waste, I even assured her that since it could not be used for the main cover, her drawing would be used for a feature cover within the paper since both the design chief and I thought it better suited there. Because of our clash, we had a long chat battle between us, sending paragraph-long chats that scathingly refuted our previous assertions. I realized this was going nowhere. Cyber-space had its limitations. It allowed no emotional interaction – only logical refutations of our own arguments.

I shut my laptop and decided to actually talk to her face to face. I went into her room. She seemed very upset. I asked her if we could talk…and we did. And little by little, we came to a mutual understanding. She wasn’t so much disappointed in the fact that her drawing was not used in the cover as my lack of feedback and interest in the process of her making the cover. She told me that she felt much pressure making the cover by herself and she thought that she would receive help from me and the chiefs. Of course, in the real world, the outer society, she would just be told from her superiors that this isn’t a nursery school. It’s a harsh world out there. But this was a school, a school where each and every one of us roaming around this huge campus forms a warmer, more close-knit society of its own. I had a duty to her both as her superior and as her friend. I realized that I just considered her a member of an organization – which calls for efficiency and quality – and not an individual with human qualities. Of course, if I just considered her wholly as an individual, the organization would fail to function properly. But I realized a balance is needed. And balance comes from understanding. Balance comes from connection. Without this connection between humanity, we become "dead" as Joyce suggests.