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Hi All Personally I've found this story a lot harder to get an understanding of than the others have - it seems subtler in its approach particularly in its intermeshing of the public and private spheres of life. Perhaps I'm trying too hard. Gabriel is the central character. The angel Gabriel , as you pointed out Chandra, is the angel of death; and like him Joyce's central character is surrounded by death. The house, that the party takes place in, is owned as a result of the death of Gabriel's Uncle Pat. Gabriel's mother has died. The discussion at the party is of dead performers. Aunt Julia is near to death - her grey pallor is reminiscent of the corpse of reverend Flynn in _Sisters_ ; and we are given a vision of her as dead through Gabriels conjecture. The death of Michael Fury, his wife's childhood sweetheart, has great bearing on Gabriels present. Joyce's Gabriel is far less powerful than the angel with whom he shares his name. Characterised by in a painterly fassion by his 'delicate and restless eyes', Gabriel wavers between a sense of superiority and inferiority - he is an insecure man. He notes the poor dancing, smiles at Lily's accent and wonders if his knowledge of literature will be too extensive for his less refined company. Yet his self-confidence is sent reeling by his confusion over Lilys personal life. Her abrupt remark leads him to question his ability to deliver his speech: "He had taken up the wrong tone. His whole speech was a mistake from first ot last, an utter failure." What makes Gabriel so insecure? It can't just be a thought that all these deaths in the family mean he's next in line. His intellectual equal Miss Ivors questions Gabriel's politics. His ability to value of himself as the Irishman is shown to be laking- "Irish is not my [his] language", he is "sick of his own country". He has taken a job with a newspaper that takes a conservative line; and buries his head in the sand, writing book reviews which he tells himself are above politics He eschews the company of the Irish revivalists and would rather displease his wife, who he clearly cares for, than go on holiday with any of their number. Gabriel's emphatically restates his views to a long ago argument with his mother that Gretta was no "country cute". Its seems to be pushing the point so far as to try to deny her ethnic Irishness. This inability to value his Irish roots seems the most likely caused of Gabriel's insecurity. The repeated image of the snow reinforces the omnipresence of death. It was this weather that killed Gretta's true love. It also shows that the past can not be forgotten, if one is to be in touch with the present. The clash of emotions between Gabriel's arousal and Gretta's melancholic reverie is a startling image of how far apart two people can be. Its fair to say this is because Gretta's past has been denied: a past that was in the West of Ireland, away for the civilised city life of Dublin. In the final image the snow covers the whole of the creation "all the living and the dead", and the sound of its falling moves Gabriel's soul. The snow is a natural element, an image of natural, uncivilised un-colonised Ireland; an image of the significance of that Ireland to the present and of the futility of denying that significance. Kirisak |
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