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Women have no power in a culture that does not respect or understand them.
The main character of “The Dead” may be a man, but the story is filled with women. These characters play an invaluable role in the text because they highlight the gender imbalance in early 20th-century Ireland. Most of the female characters are limited by the domestic sphere and society’s expectation that women remain demure and subservient. The Morkans are valued by their community, but it is their hospitality and hostess skills that receive the most praise. Gretta is desirable to her husband but only because of her “grace and wifely carriage.” Lily is considered a good housemaid but only if she sticks to her duties and never talks back to men.
If a woman does step outside the realm of traditional femininity, she is either ostracized for her nerve or expected to downplay her opinions. For example, Molly Ivors pushes back against societal expectations by challenging Gabriel. Unsurprisingly, her opinion is not respected and she is immediately judged for her actions and ultimately leaves the party early. Kate Morkan also diverges from traditional femininity when she expresses anger at the Pope for decreeing that women cannot sing in church choirs. However, her attempt to challenge male authority is almost instantly retracted when she masks her previous anger and says that she is “only a stupid old woman.” Perhaps Kate dismisses her own opinion because she knows that, as a woman, her opinion is not respected and not wanted.
Rigid routines lead to a lifeless existence.
The dull and oppressive nature of monotony and routine is a recurring sentiment that is expressed throughout various short stories in Dubliners. The majority of “The Dead” takes place at a dinner party thrown by Kate, Julia, and Mary Jane Morkan. The Morkans’ party consists of the kind of deadening routines that make existence so lifeless in Dubliners. The events of the party repeat each year: Gabriel gives a speech, Freddy Malins arrives drunk, everyone dances the same memorized steps, everyone eats. These Dubliners settle into an expected routine at this party. Such tedium fixes the characters in a state of paralysis. They are unable to break from the activities they know, so they live life without new experiences, numb to the world. Even the food on the table evokes death. The life-giving substance appears at “rival ends” of the table that is lined with parallel rows of various dishes, divided in the middle by “sentries” of fruit and watched from afar by “three squads of bottles.” The military language transforms a table set for a communal feast into a battlefield, reeking with danger and death.
The past will always haunt the present.
Many characters throughout Dubliners are unable to let go of the past to such a degree that they are essentially haunted by the ghosts of their own memories. An obvious example is Gretta, who becomes paralyzed with grief after she hears a song that reminds her of Michael Furey, a former love who died far too young. Gretta spends the rest of the short story in a haze after she hears “The Lass of Aughrim,” and her transformation is so great that the reader is able to feel Michael Furey’s apparitional presence even before Gretta reveals who the song reminds her of. Gretta is truly haunted by her former love and her childhood in Galway, so much so that she allows the memories from her past to distract and complicate her relationship with her husband. Even Michael Furey’s name invokes themes of death, punishment, and guilt. His last name could be a mythological reference to the Furies, creatures from the Underworld who, according to Greek and Roman mythology, tortured and punished people on earth and in the realm of the dead. Like the Furies, Michael Furey’s memory tortures Gretta, eternally trapping her in the past instead of allowing her to embrace the present.
