Reading Journal 4: "The Dead" by James Joyce

World Literature Class (Senior)
Reading "The Dead" by James Joyce
Reflective Essay #4
Mar. 28, 2013

              Some tend to criticize the lengthiness of “The Dead” while highlighting its articulate epiphany at the end. Those people complain about the whole loose part at the front which doesn’t directly deal with the problem which will later be brought up to the issue of epiphany. Even though I agree that the part until to reach the epiphany is quite long, I share different perspective from others in that I believe this part is somewhat essential in bringing the story to the moment of epiphany. Epiphany, experience of sudden realization within one’s situation, ironically should not come out of nowhere, or else its emotion might not be fully sympathized with the readers. Imagine “The Dead” with only the last part with epiphany. Without knowing how Gabriel thinks of himself, his wife Gretta, or all others he met, his reaction to Gretta’s story of her first love and his alternation of the emotion towards Gretta from frustration to “a strange, friendly pity for her”. If story didn’t tell of Gabriel’s supper speech which speaks of cherishing “the memory of those dead” and his firm statement to not “linger on the past”, would the eruption of emotion have been the same? Rather, it is this previous stance of him that emphasizes the sudden change within his belief and allows for more dramatic scene. Especially with James Joyce, Joyce tends to have his own way of dramatizing the epiphany, by putting a delineation of his sublime awareness of his own problem, as can be seen in his recognition of himself unable to control others to think of him as “airing his superior education”. By foreshadowing the event and implying the readers that the protagonist knew of his problem beforehand, Joyce furthermore develops what is to be destructed in his Joycean Epiphany. This nature, to develop in order to destruct, perhaps is what the epiphany is all about, how Joyce comes to be widely recognized and renowned.

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Behind the stage

Imagine a grandiose show: all the beautiful actors and actresses, bright spotlight, majestic music from a well-organized piece, variety of stage equipment that captures audiences' sight.....The plot goes on..... And....The show reaches its climax.

All the audiences rise up from their chair and give their unstinting, endless applaud towards the stage.

But, what about the things and the people behind the stage?

In order to bring one show, numerous staffs whose names don't even get an infinitesimal amount of spotlight undergo several severe, complicated tasks. Throughout their arduous efforts, the show is finally possible to be put on the stage and to meet its audiences. However, many audiences do not acknowledge the important roles of these shadow-like people. They only applaud at the main character, or the climax scene. Though the people behind the stage take a huge part in the show, they do not get acknowledged well to the viewers.

Epiphany, I believe, shares the same structure with the show stated above. The moment of epiphany is astounding not only for the protagonist in the story, but also for the readers of the story. For a highly well structured epiphany, critics with no doubt praises the piece and shed lights on this unique moment. Compared to the light that the epiphany gets on the stage, rest of the writing seems relatively dark.

For this reason, some tend to criticize the lengthiness of “The Dead” while highlighting its articulate epiphany at the end. Some complains about the whole loose part at the front which doesn't directly deal with the problem which will later be brought up to the issue of epiphany. So, was it mandatory for James Joyce to have the long stretched front part of the story to bring up this short epiphany?

“Yes,” would be my answer, for I believe they are essential to bring an eruption of emotions at the moment of epiphany. I believe the moment of epiphany is a star on the stage which essentially has to be backed up by the staffs behind the stage. My position here has its root of reasoning in the ironical state of the epiphany. Epiphany is usually defined as an experience of sudden and striking realization. Here I would like to focus on the word ‘sudden’, for I think the epiphany cannot wholly come out ‘suddenly’: Certain antecedents always come before the epiphany.

Imagine, if you were only given the part of the story “The Dead” of which the main protagonist Gabriel is exposed to the past memory of his wife Gretta’s first love Michael Furey, who “died for her sake.” Would you be able to sympathize with Gabriel about his description of his own emotions that arouses from hearing Furey’s story? Probably you will have more hard time to actually ‘feel like him’.

As stated above, there is this irony in the literary usage of epiphany; the narrator has to illustrate a lot beforehand for short laconic epiphany to come afterward. And especially for Joycean epiphany, I believe three distinctive illustrations appear in almost all stories of James Joyce: Sublime recognition of one’s own problem, aspects in the character to be broken, and the outside force that comes to demolish this characteristic within the protagonist.

Sublime recognition takes place as he acknowledges of himself being too antique for the society, in the narrator's quote of "they would think that he(Gabriel) was airing his superior education". Sublime recognition complicates readers' emotion as the epiphany, conscious recognition is then to be highlighted, and to be sympathized and to be missed in the belief he might have fixed the problem before the epiphany in disastrous way to take its place. This, I believe, is what makes Joycean Epiphany to be different from that of other previous writers.

In addition to the sublime recognition, outside force that shakes the main protagonist should take place before the epiphany. Here, his constant conflict with women, as seen in the conversation with Miss Ivors and her speaking of "West Briton" to Gabriel, gradually overtime Gabriel is confronted to the problem understanding the women. His stack of facing challenges are then popped out as his wife Gretta speaks of her first love, and the epiphany then takes place.

Then, there is this unique characteristic in the protagonist to be broken, as seen in Gabriel's own dinner speech of cherishing “the memory of those dead” and his firm statement to not “linger on the past”. In order for the epiphany, break of his consciousness or his characteristic, to take place, something must be built beforehand. It is this previous stance of him that dramatizes his shock and his epiphany.

James Joyce's epiphany, I believe, is different from that of others in the aspect that he can dramatize the moment of epiphany in a realistic way by delineating and giving background information humbly and in length. After all, I believe it is these elements behind the stage that make Joycean epiphany special.