In the short story “The Dead,” James Joyce attempts to redefine the notion of living by representing death as not simply the physical removal of a being from the world, but as a metaphorical death. The character Gabriel is portrayed as living in denial of the past and following a ritualistic lifestyle. In the speech that Gabriel delivers to the guests of the dinner party, he chooses to “not linger on the past…[so as to not] let any gloomy moralising intrude upon [them when]… gathered together for a brief moment from the bustle and rush of…everyday routine.” By focusing solely on life during the present and refusing to acknowledge the connection between the past and present, Gabriel is essentially dead. When Gretta reveals her unbroken attachment to her dead lover Michael Furey, Gabriel finally came to the realization that it is impossible to deny the past. Through Gretta’s confession of her undying love for Michael, Joyce communicates to the reader that the purpose of living is to prioritize our relationships and create memories through our experiences. Since Michael was able to continue to impact the living beyond his physical death, he was essentially more alive than Gabriel.
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Your final sentence, about Michael being able to affect the present and thus being more alive than Gabriel, is quite interesting. Throughout the story, the dead are shown to have a great impact on the living. Meanwhile, the living are shown to be hung up on the past, to the point where they do not know themselves and are paralyzed into inaction, being in a sense, also dead. I think James Joyce is trying to blur the lines between past and present, between life and death. He wants to show how Dubliners live in a state of suspended animation, neither truly alive nor truly dead, and that they must decide to take action to truly live their lives and make the difference that they hope to make, through politics, work, or any other aspect of life.