Encyclopedia of Themes in Literature

Dubliners 631

What an end! The whole narrative of her

death revolted him and it revolted him to

think that he had ever spoken to her of

what he held sacred. . . . Not merely had she

degraded herself; she had degraded him. . . .

Just God, what an end!

The lack of sympathy Duffy expresses is shocking,
and his criticisms of Mrs. Sinico are ironic. While
it seems evident to him that Mrs. Sinico was “unfit
to live,” it is not evident to him that his own life
resembles more a kind of death sentence in its iso-
lation and monotony. Furthermore, it is not Mrs.
Sinico who lacks “strength of purpose,” since her
apparent suicide is an act of free will. Duffy, on the
other hand, for fear of having his familiar world
interrupted by the passion displayed by Mrs. Sinico,
puts a stop to their meetings.
In “The Dead,” Gabriel Conroy ends the story
feeling utterly alone and isolated from everyone
around him. The story begins with a sense of fel-
lowship and community, with a party thrown by
Gabriel’s two aunts, Miss Kate and Miss Julia. It is
attended by friends and family, and throughout we
are presented with life, warmth, laughter, and fel-
lowship. Gabriel, however, seems not to fit in with
the company he is among. This is due to his sense of
himself as being better educated than those around
him. His fondness for Miss Kate and Miss Julia may
be described as slightly condescending and patroniz-
ing: “What did he care that his aunts were only two
ignorant old women?” When thinking about what to
include in his speech, he is

undecided about the lines from Robert Brown-

ing for he feared they would be above the

heads of his hearers. Some quotation that they

could recognize from Shakespeare or from the

Melodies would be better. . . . He would only

make himself ridiculous by quoting poetry to

them which they could not understand.

In this arrogant manner, Gabriel sets himself apart
from everyone else. His isolation, in a sense like
Duffy’s, is a kind of self-exile.
After the party, Gabriel and his wife Gretta are
walking through the snow back to their hotel, and

watching her in front of him, he feels a sudden desire

rising within him for her. When they arrive home,

Gabriel tries to express his affection for her, in hopes

that she will respond in a manner matching his own

desire. She does not, and after much prompting she

finally reveals to him that she is upset because the

snow outside has reminded her of a lover in the past

who had died of ill health. Gretta reveals that the

boy had come to see her the night before she was

due to leave Galway, exposing himself to the rain,

which eventually caused his death. Gabriel is humil-

iated by the revelation, and the events of the evening

leading up to this moment compound themselves

into driving him into further isolation. He “saw

himself as a ludicrous figure, acting as a pennyboy

for his aunts, a nervous well-meaning sentimentalist,

orating to vulgarians and idealizing his own clown-

ish lusts, the pitiable fatuous fellow he had caught a

glimpse of in the mirror.” Like Duffy in “A Painful

Case,” the extent of his isolation is so great that he

experiences a kind of alienation even from himself,

as he indulges in a moment of self-loathing. Like

Duffy, his isolation is also guided by selfishness, and

is to a certain extent self-imposed as a result of pride

and arrogance. Like Duffy, it prevents him from

being sympathetic toward his wife.

At the end of the story, Gretta finally falls asleep,

and Gabriel quietly contemplates the inevitable

loneliness of humanity. He imagines the death of

Aunt Julia, and compares death to a “shade,” a kind

of darkness that creeps over us all, and how “one

by one they were all becoming shades.” Gabriel’s

own isolation becomes a meditation on universal

isolation: “His soul swooned slowly as he heard the

snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly

falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the

living and the dead.” The snow descends upon the

universe, forming a blanket of isolation under which

humanity is buried.

Wern Mei Yong

reliGion in Dubliners

The collection Dubliners opens with the story “The

Sisters,” and with the introduction of three terms

that characterize the collection as whole. These

terms, italicized to draw attention, are paralysis,

gnomon, and simony. The final term, “simony,” refers