"The Dead" Quotes
"The Dead" by James Joyce explores themes of life, death, and identity through the experiences of Gabriel Conroy during a holiday gathering in early 20th-century Dublin.
classics | 485 pages | Published in NaN
Quotes
Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves.
A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight.
His soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead.
Gretta! Dead! Dead!
Generous tears filled Gabriel's eyes. He had never felt like that himself towards any woman, but he knew that such a feeling must be love.
One by one, they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.
His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world: the solid world itself, which these dead had one time reared and lived in, was dissolving and dwindling.
He had never felt like that himself towards any woman, but he knew that such a feeling must be love.
The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland.
They seemed to him then to be but shadows of the house upon the moor and of the life upon the moor. Their tale was a mystery, but it was a mystery of sin.
