Identity in Death in James Joyce's The Dead Anonymous 12th Grade

James Joyce’s “The Dead” is a short story that reflects on the effects of death on the living individual. Toward the end of the story, Gabriel Conroy and his wife Gretta have just arrived home from a dinner gathering that Gabriel’s aunts had hosted, when Gretta reveals that when she was young, a boy she loved died for her. This conversation between Gretta and Gabriel highlights the complex emotions that result from the death of a loved one, death of identity, and the realization that death is inevitable.

At the beginning of the excerpt, Gabriel and his wife Gretta have just finished a very intense and emotional conversation about a past love Gretta had when she was young, named Michael Furey. He was ill, and he eventually ended up dying for Gretta when he went to visit her in the pouring rain the night before she left town to join a convent. This was unexpected news to Gabriel, and it was clear to him how much of a weight Michael’s death had on Gretta. She fell asleep, and Gabriel stared at “her tangled hair and half-open mouth” (1-2). At this moment, by her disheveled appearance when she drifts asleep, the depth of Gretta’s despair over Michael is revealed. It shows how damaged she was not only by his death but also by keeping...