Gabriel: The Atypical Joycean Character

Initially Gabriel Conroy, like the characters seen throughout Dubliners, is a paralyzed man; however, the events that take place in The Dead ultimately evoke within him an epiphany. Gabriel's ultimate realization alludes to a possible end of the paralytic cycle that consumes his life. At dinner, Gabriel makes a speech that essentially is a call to live in the present and let go of the past (specifically those who have passed away). Later, he becomes self-conscious when his wife brings up her first love, Michael Furey (who has since passed away). Her words cause him to feel sadness at first, but after contemplating, he finally awakens to the truth. In the final pages on Dubliners, Gabriel reverses the claim he made at dinner.

His epiphany initially appears dreary and pessimistic. At first, he thinks about how the living and the dead occupy the same realm. When Joyce writes, "snow was general all over Ireland... falling... where Michael Furey lay buried," he is conveying the fact that - dead or alive - there is no escaping the cold paralysis. The somber fate of the living is ultimately death. Suddenly, his thoughts take another turn. Gabriel's soul "swooned"as he observed the snow starting to lose its vigor. Though it is winter, the snow will eventually stop falling, and Gabriel swoons or feels excitement about this notion. In this regard, he is an atypical Joycean character. The paradigm character would become enamored by someone or something, pursue it, lose it or fail, and then hopelessly give up. Gabriel has us as readers going for a while with his growing pessimism, but he eventually ends on a positive note. He essentially contradicts the contradiction he made about his dinner speech (which is essentially a contradiction in itself). He "laments" the present, but advocates living in the present and forgetting the past -> He sinks into a depression, thinking that the living and the dead are intertwined in an unbreakable and lugubrious paralytic cycle -> He thinks that perhaps there is some chance, SOME CHANCE, that one can break free from the paralysis of the past. In tracing the evolution of Gabriel, Joyce forms a bridge between the seemingly unbreakable paralyzing chains in The Sisters to a glimmering ray of hope that is present at the end of The Dead.