The Dead
...d also because they were afraid that Freddy Malins would show up drunk. Gabriel and his wife arrive shortly after. Gabriel is a stout, tall young man. Lily helps Gabriel with his things and Gabriel mentions that soon she must be getting ready to get married. He then rehearses his speech that he will give before dinner, which he is very nervous about. Gabriel tells his aunts that he and Gretta will be staying in a hotel nearby rather than going back to their home that night. Freddy Malins then arrives at the party. He is somewhat disoriented from alcohol, but nothing extraordinary. Gabriel is told to watch Freddy and make sure he is not too drunk. As Gabriel follows Freddy downstairs, Freddy decides to talk to Mr. Browne. Mr. Browne gives Freddy some lemonade rather than alcohol, because he is getting too drunk. Mary-Jane then begins playing music. This reminds Gabriel of his mother, who opposed of his marriage to Gretta, but Gretta ironically tended to her when his mother was dying. Gabriel then ends up dancing with Miss Ivors. She teases him about the articles he writes for a newspaper. He does not take the teasing very well and it continues to bother him for a while. Then Gretta asks Gabriel if he will carve the goose. Everyone gathers around for dinner, and Aunt Julie sings a song. Everyone enjoys and is amazed at her great talent. Gabriel then begins with his speech. Then everyone begins to sing “For they are jolly gay fellows". Dinner ends and the party begins to die down. When Gabriel is ready to leave, he notices Gretta standing at the top of the stairs listening to Mr. Bartell D'Arcy singing. Gretta and Gabriel then leave to take the taxi to the hotel. Walking to the taxi, Gabriel thinks of all the times him and Gretta had together and remembers things from their private life together. On their way to the hotel Gretta seems to be upset, and she tells Gabriel that the song Mr. Bartell D'Arcy sang reminded her of a boy she loved who died when she was young. The song really affected Gretta, as she continued to sob once they arrived at the hotel. This begins to bother Gabriel. Gretta then falls asleep, and Gabriel was left to think. He thinks about mortality, and his two lovely old aunts. Soon, he'll return to that house for their funerals. As he thought about the times he and Gretta had together, she was thinking about times that she had with another person. This made Gabriel feel very insignificant. Gabriel begins to cry, as he feels that nothing is right anymore. The major theme in this story is mortality. We do not see the major theme very clearly until the end of the story. It becomes evident when Gabriel begins to think about the boy that died which his wife loves. The death of the young boy causes Gabriel to completely alter his thoughts about the way his wife perceived him. This triggers his thoughts of his aunts, and how they will eventually die, and when he returns to their home, it will be for their funeral. Also Gabriel feels as if he has died away from his wife. He felt as if they were very close, but now he sees them drifting away. Epiphany is known as the comprehension or perception of reality by means of a sudden intuitive realization.(Lexico, 2004) Epiphanies generally come from an unexpected change, which result in a change of thought about a certain subject. There are several different examples of epiphanies in this story. The first is when Gabriel is talking to Lilly. They begin to chat and Gabriel says that she will be having her own wedding soon. She responds by saying, “The men that is now is only all palaver and what they can get out of you”. This means that men only talk long enough to see what they can get out of a woman sexually. This statement from Lilly disturbs Gabriel greatly. It was stated earlier in the story that Gabriel noticed Lilly beauty, and for this reason, he realizes that what she said may be true. The second example of an epiphany is when Gabriel is dancing with Ms. Ivors. She realizes that he writes reviews in a newspaper. She begins to torment him about his views on the politics, but Gabriel takes great offence to her statements, even though she...