The Dead begins with a silent night full of snow flurries. But while the outside is covered in snow, inside, a party is taking place. Although this holiday is an annual event, it has its own routine that is followed. However, the only things that have changed this time around are the main characters, Gabriel and his wife Gretta, and the events that unfold at the party play a major role in the interactions between this married couple. The party is marked by lots of drinking and dancing, old friends meeting up and chatting. All the events of the party lead to the explosive ending, where Gretta tearfully reveals at their hotel that she has been thinking about a former lover ever since she heard a familiar song at the party, leaving Gabriel dismayed as he did not noticed that of his wife. emotional state, followed by other mixtures of emotions. Gabriel did not realize that his wife had been fascinated by the memory of a former lover ever since she heard this song in the party lounge. Gabriel is too narcissistic to realize that his wife is in a state of emotional distress. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay There are many reasons to argue that Gabriel is in a state of narcissism. The first is seen in his interaction with the housekeeper, Lilly. When she arrives, she takes her coat and they chat a little. Everything seems fine until Gabriel asks if Lilly is old enough to marry, and Lilly replies that men only want "what they can get from you" (Joyce, p. 2). Instead of trying to fix the situation by talking. to Lilly, Gabriel awkwardly hands her a holiday tip, hoping that will make things better. It's not enough, but he leaves the conversation anyway and enters the party to start dancing. After the meeting with Lilly, he thought a lot about their conversation and how "his whole speech was a mistake from start to finish, a total failure" (Joyce, p.2). In this scene, Gabriel has an internal monologue, in which he acknowledges that the conversation didn't go well, or that there was at least some sort of misunderstanding on some level. There's the fact that he hoped monetary compensation would help alleviate his obvious awkwardness in the conversation. The ability he is so easily able to do shows a display of class and wealth, which shows his ego, a trait of narcissism. However, instead of returning to Lilly to make amends, he continues the party as usual. But this does not mean that Gabriel is too absorbed in his inner thoughts or that he is wasting his wealth. He is aware of what is happening around him. For example, after the interaction with Lilly and his thoughts on how awful the conversation was, he continued to have a conversation with his wife. This conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Freddy Malins, a party guest who always seems to arrive drunk. Gabriel ensured that Freddy became sober enough to participate in the evening's festivities. This includes taking him to a separate room in the house so he doesn't make a scene where everyone is dancing. This action is not that of a person who is self-centered or obsessed with appearances. It's an act of kindness, and while some people don't want anything to do with someone who's always drunk, Gabriel does everything he can to keep the party going smoothly. And while it may be true that Gabriel made sure Freddy wasn't a nuisance to any of the party attendees, he didn't stay with him the whole time, but instead enlisted the help of Mr. Browne, another party attendee, and left Freddywith him. After leaving Freddy with Mr. Browne, Gabriel returned to the party and did not return to Mr. Browne or Freddy. Although an outward act of kindness is exempt from Gabriel's coherent inner monologue, other things are not. For example, at the end of the party, Gretta and Gabriel decide to take a taxi rather than walk to their hotel. Before that, however, Gretta is apparently fascinated by a song sung in the living room. Even after the song ends, she's still distracted. Throughout the taxi ride to Dublin, she remains silent and pensive, lost in the memory of her former lover and how he died waiting for her in the cold. Gabriel notices that his wife is preoccupied, perhaps even emotionally distressed, but does not try to talk to her. This is because, like his wife, he too is lost in his own world. Similar to his, there are themes of love, but with undertones of desire for his wife. Gabriel's thoughts are shown explicitly in a quote written upon their arrival at the hotel, where Gabriel believes that "they escaped from their lives and their duties, escaped from their home and their friends and ran away with a wild and radiant heart in a new adventure". (Joyce 18). George L. Lucente dissects this quote in his article Encounters and Subtexts in “The Dead”: A Note on Joyce’s Narrative Technique. Lucente recognizes that Gabriel longs for an escape and he also points out that Gabriel notices Gretta's strange mood and the events that unfold afterward. But Lucente says that instead of thinking about his wife and how this memory must affect her, Gabriel's thoughts align with the prospect of "losing." From this perspective, Gabriel shows no concern for Gretta who has just told a sordid story about her former boyfriend and cried herself to sleep, but is absorbed in his thoughts about victory and losing control over her. Additionally, there is a scene in the bedroom. from the hotel, where Gretta tells Gabriel the story of her former lover. Brian Cosgrove described and dissected Gabriel's reaction in his article Male Sexuality and Female Rejection: Persistent irony in Joyce's 'The Dead'. When Gabriel first realizes that Gretta is distressed, he asks her what's wrong and she bursts into tears, saying that the song reminds her of someone important, a former lover. This discovery that Gretta had a former lover shakes Gabriel, but also makes him embarrassed. Then, Gretta starts talking about how Michael Furey died for her. Cosgrove declares. He also states that there is a way for Gabriel to get out of this state of interiority. But that opportunity quickly disappears when Gretta gives more details about Michael and their story. And even while listening to Gretta tell her story, a key part of her past and who she is, Cosgrove describes how Gabriel sees himself in the mirror and observes himself as someone ridiculous (p. 7). And maybe that's what led to the awkwardness during Gabriel's speech at the party. After the conversation with Lilly and the help of Freddy Malins, Gabriel finds himself dancing with Miss Ivors, one of his colleagues. While dancing, she urges him to take a trip, but he refuses saying he already has a bike trip planned. During this conversation, she discovered his pseudonym as a writer for a newspaper and accused him of disliking his own country because he did not want to make the trip and was instead planning a trip to bike. After his dance with Miss Ivors, a song is sung by Julia, one of the three hostesses, the other two being Gabriel's aunts. Everyone eats and Gabriel gives a speech which elicits a round of applause and a toast to three hostesses. Before the speech, Gabrielalready had an encounter with Lily that would make him more self-conscious than he already is. In addition to this, he also had Miss Ivors, a friend and colleague, discover that he was a ghost writer and tell him about what she saw as a lack of interest in his country. But this speech, an external action, could also free itself from the solitary monologue from which Gabriel does not seem to separate, by giving him confidence, by getting involved with the participants in the party who listen to his speech. Just like Cosgrove mentioned how being with his wife distracts Gabriel from his self-awareness. And on the outside, it seemed that Gabriel could be a little less self-involved, as he proclaimed that he would not dwell on the past but would move forward (Joyce 13). The content of the speech concerns future generations, with an appreciation of events that occurred in the past. This doesn't sound like someone self-conscious or narcissistic, but Gabriel returns to his singular thinking in subsequent scenes. The next scene at the hotel, where Gretta tells Gabriel what is on her mind, shows Gabriel's narcissism. most of them. During the story, Gabriel becomes angry when he realizes that he is not in fact Gretta's first love, and that she had loved before him. Instead of moving to comfort his wife, Gabriel experiences angry feelings, then begins to compare himself to Michael Furey and degrades his own self-image (Joyce 20). And admittedly, Gabriel noticed that his wife was in a different emotional state, from the moment she heard the song at the party until she returned to the hotel. But he only used it to his own advantage, to fuel his own imagination. In his own imagination, he created a place where he and his wife could escape. While Gabriel uses his thoughts for treatment, he also uses them in this case to escape reality. In this escape, Gabriel is in control of everything because they are all thoughts in his mind. It's a fantasy world, and escapism, over which he has complete control and the contribution of anyone or anything else doesn't matter. In the very last scene where Gretta is sleeping and Gabriel is still awake, he is thinking about Michael Furey and how is he lying under the snow, buried in a grave. But then his thoughts turn to himself again and he begins to dissect his love with Gretta. Here he does not compare himself to Michael, but compares the feeling of love he felt earlier for his wife to the feeling of love Gretta must have felt for her former lover (Joyce 22). Gabriel still shows signs of embarrassment and narcissism, until the last page, the only difference is that it's on a deeper level. Gabriel almost seems to have selective attention when it comes to what's going on around him. An example is when he and his wife go to their hotel after the party in their taxi. He noticed that his wife's behavior had changed. However, he didn't notice anything else. He did not notice that she was in distress because he too was absorbed in his desire for his wife. Not only that, but he has created an escape from the real world, an escape from reality, an escape where he and his wife can escape. And even though this escape he created includes his wife, he didn't ask her opinion. He also based his imaginative escape from what seemed to be superficial characteristics from a look from his wife. When Gabriel first saw that she was so lost in thought, he became fascinated by his wife's change in mood, then thought back to their love when they first met. He then continues his internal monologue. When Gretta begins to show signs of boredom and it occurs to Gabriel that Gretta is not.