The Dead
The short story "The Dead" deals with the significance of life. This title is significant and develops several aspects of the story. First it reveals that the characters are unable to be emotional, they are physically living but emotionally dead. Second it subsidizes to the main subject of the story, Gabriel's epiphany. The title contributes to these facets of the story by adding meaning and acting as a reminder of the overall theme of the story. It also shows us how Gabriel tries to fit in but it becomes hard during the Religious party that his aunt’s Julia and Kate were having. During this party he realizes a lot of issues that he was having and how he did not know how to handle them.
Gabriel first talks to Lily, the caretaker’s daughter when he arrives to the party, their conversation doesn’t go so well and she tells him with bitterness “The men that is now is only all palaver and what they can get out of you” (The Dead, 84). Beside Lily saying all men mislead women and want nothing but sex, she honestly challenges Gabriel’s macho male idea of women and makes him uncomfortable. Gabriel not knowing how to respond just offers her money thinking that this was going to make it all better. However, what Gabriel realized during this encounter was that he has more problems that were internal and psychological.
We can also see during the story the relationship that Gabriel has with this wife Gretta, which shows the identity crisis that he is having and his epiphany. In the story we can see how Gabriel doesn’t really care about his marriage. Miss. Ivors, a friend of the family invites Gabriel on a month-long vacation to the Aran Isles on the west coast of Ireland, he knows that his wife’s people are from that part of Ireland, but he conceitedly turns down her offer and says that he already has plans to visit Europe. Gretta later tells Gabriel that she’d love to go, he unemotionally says, “You can go if you like” (The Dead, 90). Here we can see that Gabriel doesn’t care about his marriage and he doesn’t really love his