Many thoughts might go through one’s mind when reading The Dead by James Joyce , an Irish author. For example, why has he chosen that title when a major part of the story revolves around some people attending a party? Who is or are the dead, if there’s more than one dead person? However, after having read through the short story, it became very clear to me that The Dead had a deeper meaning.

The Dead opens at an annual party given by the Morkan sisters’ house. All the guests were enjoying themselves, except from Gabriel Conroy, the nephew of the Morkan sisters. Most of the story dwells around this party and the people attending the party. Greta, the wife of Gabriel, went into a trance when she heard Mr Bartell D’Arcy, a famous tenor and guest, sings the The Last of Aughrim. This song reminded Greta of her former dead lover, Micheal Furrey. When the party was over, Gabriel and Greta went to the hotel they were staying. Only then, Greta reveals her story about her former lover to Gabriel.

The title, The Dead, is related to the story in many ways. We find many symbols in the book, including several mentions of dead people at several occasions in the book. At the party for instance, the Morkans talk about their dead brother, and the dead mother of Gabriel. A conversation also takes place about monks. According to one of the guests, monks sleep in coffins to purify themselves of their sins.

We also find symbols of death at the party, especially when James Joyce describes the food as a battle field. He uses words that we would normally use in battle contexts or military contexts. At a point, the author even wrote something about the “living-substances” coming in at last, as to emphasised that everything that was on the table before the apparition of these “living-substances was just “dead-substances.” This scene could be interpret as if the livings were trying to make their way among the dead little by little. Eventually, they will succeed when Greta hears The Lass of Aughrim and when Gabriel has an epiphany at the end of the story.

If we relate the title to the overall thematic concerns of the story, The Dead simply means that the whole of Ireland and the people in it wasn’t living. They were alive, but not living. Their souls were dead.