Initial Observations

A long short story, perhaps a novella, “The Dead” by James Augustine Aloysius Joyce ranks among the greatest tales in the English language. When he composed this Christmas narrative in 1907, Joyce was 25 and living away from his native Dublin, Ireland, a city he associated with cultural paralysis. As regards politics, the Ireland of Joyce’s day subsisted under a colonial dispensation as part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (the UK), an entity or nation that had come into existence on January 1, 1801, largely in response to the bloodiest uprising in Irish history: the United Irish Rebellion of 1798. As regards religion, the Roman Catholic Church — which an embittered Joyce called “the holy Roman empire” — exerted tremendous influence over the majority of the population in most regions of Ireland. Just one character in “The Dead” (Mr. Browne) appears not to be a Roman Catholic. (One notes that when Henry VIII, King of England and Lord of Ireland, suppressed the monasteries, a certain George Browne [died 1556], Archbishop of Dublin, was his enforcer in Ireland.)

In Chapter 5 of Joyce’s Bildungsroman (coming-of-age novel), A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), the principal protagonist, Stephen Dedalus, opines “with cold violence” that “Ireland is the old sow that eats her farrow [offspring]”; and he also assets that he intends to avoid the “nets” of “nationality, language, [and] religion” that Ireland has “flung at [his soul] to hold it back from flight.” Although “The Dead” very much addresses issues related to nationality, language, and religion in Ireland, Joyce wrote most of the short story while teaching English in Trieste, a port city now in northeast Italy but then under the control of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

“The Dead” occurs in two upstairs spaces in Dublin, capital of Ireland: first, the apartment that two sisters, Julia and Kate Morkan, rent in a riverside district called Usher’s Island; next, a bedroom that the women’s nephew and his wife rent in the Gresham Hotel on the city’s main boulevard. The married couple, Gabriel and Gretta Conroy, use the bedroom after attending “the Misses Morkan’s annual dance” — that is, a party held, late in the evening, on one of the twelve days of Christmas. During the meal at the party, Gabriel’s aunts expect him to deliver a speech, although the prospect of doing so causes Gabriel, a university-educated schoolteacher, considerable anxiety. In fact, the speech proves a success, emboldening Gabriel to seek sexual intimacy with Gretta when they reach the hotel. To Gabriel’s surprise, as they prepare for bed, Gretta manifests a “strange mood” and becomes radically upset, initially issuing an “outburst of tears” and then “coking with sobs.”

First Mandatory Task (of Four)

Your first task: read the story. We are approaching the text as two “phases.” The first phase concludes when, just prior to the meal, Molly Ivors leaves the Christmas party that Julia and Kate Morkan — two elderly spinster sister — host in their second-floor residence by the River Liffey in west-central Dublin. The second phase narrates the meal and what happens next: the dialogue between Gabriel Conroy, Julia and Kate’s nephew, and his wife, Gretta, in the hotel bedroom they go to after the party.

You can access James Joyce’s short story “The Dead” (written in 1907 but not published until 1914) by clicking the icons above. Your instructor has divided the reading into two parts: Phase One and Phase Two.

Second Mandatory Task (of Four)

Your second task: absorb the lectures. In face-to-face versions of the course, the attendance-mandatory lectures that your instructor delivers in the classroom convey the semester’s core content, and elements of that content will feature in exams. As for virtual versions of the course: they rely in part on audio lectures, which (for this text) follow immediately below. Students enrolled in an F2F course will certainly find the audio lectures useful, and they can treat them an optional extra.

Joyce Lecture 1/3

Click Arrow on Black Bar to Listen to Audio Version of Joyce Lecture 1/3
You may have to click the arrow several times to initiate play

Joyce Lecture 2/3

Click Arrow on Black Bar to Listen to Audio Version of Joyce Lecture 2/3
You may have to click the arrow several times to initiate play

Joyce Lecture 3/3

Click Arrow on Black Bar to Listen to Audio Version of Joyce Lecture 3/3
You may have to click the arrow several times to initiate play

Third Mandatory Task (of Four)

Your third task: study the instructional content. In order to render the lectures as clear as possible, your instructor has captured their essential material in written form, presented immediately below as two PDFs: First Written Account and Second Written Account. Consider these documents your primary resource when studying the focal text. Terms that have particular importance appear in highlighted form.

EXAM WORDS

When preparing for your exam about this work of literature, ensure that you are fully up to speed with the following data (all of which receive explanation in the written accounts):

Title of short story collection, by Joyce, in which “The Dead” first appeared ••• County of Ireland (name begins with “G”) that receives mention in Joyce’s “The Dead” (and Maugham’s “P & O”) ••• Raphael is recognized as the healer archangel; know the role associated with the archangel Gabriel, as well as that associated with the archangel Michael ••• Monto ••• Talking cure: Freud’s therapy method ••• Incipit ••• Chiasmus ••• Galoshes ••• Palaver ••• Cenacle ••• West Briton ••• Simian ••• Stirabout ••• Saturnalia ••• Lumper potato ••• Epiphany (called “women’s Christmas” or “little Christmas” in Ireland) ••• Anagorisis ••• English poet whose work Gabriel considers quoting in his speech ••• Sordello ••• Attribute: a symbol associated with (or that identifies) a saint ••• Athletic activity Gabriel intends to pursue when on mainland Europe ••• Brand- or model-names of bicycles manufactured in the Ireland of Gabriel’s day ••• Individual honored by statue that Gabriel addresses ••• Significance of Irish-language word geis (pronounced “gas”) ••• Name of group of islands where Molly intends to study the Irish language (Gaeilge) over the summer ••• Name of male character who arrives at the party “screwed” (i.e. drunk) ••• Theobald Mathew ••• Types of nationalism: physical-force; cultural; constitutional (associated with Daniel O’Connell); land-and-house ••• Wyndham Land Purchase Act (1903) ••• Design on Molly’s brooch ••• Uncle Charles Principle ••• The tradition, according to Gabriel’s speech, that does Ireland most “honor” ••• Bret Harte ••• How to date the action in “The Dead”: Pope Pius X issued his moto priopio (or decree) about women in church choirs on St. Cecelia’s Day 1903 ••• Significant of “convent”

Fourth Mandatory Task (of Four)

Your fourth task: complete and submit — via Folio, before the deadline — the single Write Now (i.e. written homework) exercise about the focal literary text. Refer to your syllabus and/or the course Folio page to check the submission deadline. No late work is accepted.

There are 10 questions, presented in reading order. In other words: the questions chronologically track the PDFs that contain the assigned reading: Phase One and Phase Two of James Joyce’s short story “The Dead.” When attempting the questions, it’s advisable NOT to begin with Folio but instead to: (1) download a PDF containing the 10 Write Now questions as a single document (also available via the green bar below); and then (2) answer each question-set in a Microsoft Word document, which you should save as you proceed. That way, you’ll always have proof that you completed the exercise, even if Folio goes down or otherwise doesn’t cooperate. When you have finished the entire Write Now exercise, you should review it carefully, save it again, and then submit it via Folio — either as a Microsoft Word document or a PDF — before the firm deadline. The ability to submit ceases at that time, and effort not received before the deadline earns a grade of zero. Another way of saying the above: late submission isn’t possible. Remember, please, that your grade depends not just on correct responses but also: complete sentences; good grammar; accurate spelling; and clear expression.

Please be very mindful of the following statements, which appear on the course syllabus.

Do your own work. Students may not collaborate on the production of responses to Write Now quizzes (i.e. homework exercises). When grading, we pay close attention to similarities between submissions. A student found to have copied or otherwise relied on another student’s work (on even one occasion) — or found to have committed plagiarism — will receive an “F” for the entire course and, in addition, will be reported to the University for a hearing that may result in suspension or expulsion from GS.

Additional Resources

Due to its importance and popularity, James Joyce’s “The Dead” has inspired hundreds of literary-critical books and articles. In addition, close to his death, the renowned Hollywood director John Huston made an excellent film version of the story, titled The Dead (1987). His son, Tony, wrote the screenplay; and his daughter, Angela, starred as Gretta Conroy. Shaun Davey and Richard Nelson’s musical version of the short story debuted on Broadway in 2000, enjoying a run of 120 performances.

Six-Episode Podcast

To understand the short story more thoroughly, a terrific resource is a six-episode podcast, Joyce’s Dublin: An Exploration of “The Dead,” which University College Dublin (a unit of the National University of Ireland) created between 2009 and 2012. You can access all the episodes via the official website or on most other podcast platforms.