The Dead

Fiction | Novella | Adult | Published in 1914

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Symbols & Motifs

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Symbols & Motifs

Snow

Snow is one of the most important symbols in “The Dead.” Descriptions of snow bookend the story, beginning with Gabriel scraping snow from his shoes and ending with him watching the snow fall outside the window of his hotel room. In the tie between these two descriptions, however, Gabriel becomes attuned to the symbolism of the snow. At the beginning, the snow is a force of nature. It is an impedance, something which threatens to make walking along the streets of Dublin an annoyance. Gabriel thinks about snow only in terms of how it affects him on a practical level, so he must scrape the wet snow from his shoes so as to keep them in the best condition. Snow is incidental to his life, in the same way that he focuses only on himself and lacks empathy for others.

Snow is a distinctly external occurrence in the story. Gabriel removes it from his shoes, shaking of the final traces of the outside world before he steps into the party. From there, he only glimpses the snow through windows. The snow falls outside, creating a contrast between the warm, bustling party and the cold, serenity of the snow-blanketed exterior. The hustle and bustle of the warm party with the uninterrupted calm of the snow is a symbol for the internality of Gabriel as a character. His mind is insular, focused on himself, and as a result his mind comes to resemble the party, with competing influences, loud dissonance, and a chaotic nature which is hard to predict. To Gabriel, the outside world is as cold and as unknowable as the environment beneath the snow.

By the end of the story, however, Gabriel views the snow differently. The revelation about Gretta makes him think about the world as a whole. His burgeoning empathy overwhelms his mind and he focuses on the snow fall as a symbol of this newfound generality. The snow falls all over Ireland, he realizes. The snow falls on the living and the dead alike. The snow does not discriminate, nor does it segregate different parts of existence. The snow is a symbol of this external unity being made internal. Gabriel learns to bring himself into unison with the society he inhabits, feeling his mind drift out and beyond to encompass all Ireland just as the fall of the snow itself settles across the entire country. From now on, Gabriel will symbolically be more like the snow. He will not be trapped inside; he will apply himself to everyone and everything around him.

Light and Dark

In “The Dead,” the ambient conditions of the setting have important symbolic value. In the story, light is used to symbolize the known world. Everything that is portrayed in light is, from the perspective of Gabriel, something that is understood. The people and places which are cast in the dark, however, are unknown. Anything placed in the shadows symbolizes the parts of the world that Gabriel does not know or understand. The clearest example of this contrast between light and dark, between knowing and not knowing, is when Gabriel watches Gretta. As he watches her, shadows fall across her body. The light even falls across her features in ways he does not recognize. The light and shadows which fall across Gretta symbolize the way in which Gabriel’s view of her is changing as he begins to realize how little about her that he really knows.

In “The Dead,” the past is a dark place. The present—the party—is well lit and clear to all the guests. As they sit around the dinner table, however, they try and cast their light back into the past and they struggle to give form and substance to their memories. They rely on nostalgia when discussing opera singers or traditional values, viewing only those parts of the past that they recognize while ignoring everything that contradicts them or falls beyond the boundaries of the light of their memories.

The symbolic contrast between the light and the dark reaches a zenith in the hotel room. As Gabriel and Gretta are led to the room, Gabriel tells the porter to take away the candle. He embraces the true dark of the room, as he comes to terms with the reality that his life is filled with more dark and unknowing than he ever realized. The refusal of the porter’s light is a symbolic acknowledgement from Gabriel that he still has plenty to learn about Gretta. He accepts her in her shadows, disavowing the light to confront his unknowing. After their discussion, Gretta falls asleep and Gabriel stares at the soft light filtering through the window. After everything he has been through, his eyes are adjusting to a new, dimmer kind of light. This external light is the world outside of Gabriel, creeping into his consciousness. As he accepts the need for more empathy for the world, he begins to see the world outside by the calm, soft light that comes from without, rather than within. Gabriel’s relationship with light symbolically changes, representing his newfound acceptance of the true way of the world.

Music

Music appears as a common refrain throughout “The Dead.” The guests at the party love music, and they call for performances from several guests. Mary Jane is a piano teacher who entertains the guests and Bartell D’Arcy eventually, after many pleas, performs an old folk song. These performances bring the guests together in a moment of unity. The appreciation of the musicians is universal and no one criticizes any aspect of the performance. These performances symbolize the more joyful, communal aspects of the party. Even if there is a dark undercurrent to the guests’ existence, such as Gretta’s hidden tragedy or Freddy’s bronchitis, the guests can still come together and celebrate with one another.

Music is not just entertainment in the present. At the dinner, the guests sit down and discuss their favorite opera singers from decades ago. This conversation reveals the way in which music (and the discussion of music) is an important nostalgic symbol. The guests look to the past, comparing it favorably to the present. The music they have in their present is entertaining and communal, but it lacks the transcendental power of the past. The characters have no way to prove their assertions that the performers of the past were far greater than the performers of the present. There are no recordings, so the guests rely on their memories, many of which are individual. The fruitless expression of nostalgia is a symbolic illustration of the way in which the past can haunt the present. The guests enjoy the music performances they see, but they are haunted by the idea that whatever they are enjoying was once better. This limits their ability to live in the present and relish what they have, just as Gretta is haunted by the memory of Michael Furey.

The fierce, nostalgic quality of music signifies the hidden emotion of people’s lives. To Gretta, the song sung by Bartell has a hidden significance. No other guest knows about Michael Furey, nor that he sang this song to her. The song signifies death, tragedy, and guilt. The song is a symbol of lost love, but only for Gretta. He sacrificed himself to hear that song, and she never even knew the title. To hear it again, devoid of that emotional context, is devastating. The incident makes Gretta feel as though she failed Michael. At the party, this maelstrom of emotions occurs entirely within Gretta’s mind. The private symbolism of the song represents the separation between the internal and external existences of the characters, making Gretta seem more impenetrable than ever to someone like Gabriel.