Gabriel\'S Epiphany - Joyce PDF

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JOYCE GABRIEL’S EPIPHANY 1) Who was Gabriel thinking about as he watched his wife sleeping? → Gabriel was thinking about the romance between his wife and Michael Furey: their love was so deep that Micheal ‘had braved death for her’ and she never forgot him. He also thinks about his ‘unimportant’ role in Gretta’s life. Although Micheal is dead he is still living in her heart and in her thoughts. (more than Gabriel). 2) Why did he feel pity for her as he watched her? → Gabriel felt pity for Gretta because he knew she had suffered a lot. In comparison with Gretta’s young love, Gabriel had not an important place in her heart. 3) What confusion did the untidy clothes represent? → The untidy clothes represent the confusion that affects Gabriel when he discovers that his wife has had a great young love. Gretta undresses and is now naked in the eyes of Gabriel. 4) Why did he think ‘poor Aunt Julia’? → Gabriel thought ‘poor Aunt Julia’ because during the Christmas party he caught in her face a hint of desperation that made her seem the Death itself. 5) What is meant by ‘lame and useless’? → The expression ‘lame and useless’ means that every comforting word is ineffective because people are paralyzed, unable to have an effect on the reality. 6) What does Gabriel mean when he thinks ‘one by one they were all becoming shades’? → Gabriel, through his epiphany, has is mind suddenly cleared and he’s aware that him and the others will die sooner or later. 7) Identify the epiphany in the text. → The epiphany is in Joyce’s novels a mechanism through which people suddenly experience a spiritual awakening. The whole story is a process of constant epiphanies, experienced not only by Gabriel but also by Gretta. She has an epiphany when she listens to the song and remembers his real love: Micheal Furey. Gabriel has more epiphanies, but the main one is during the snowfall that covers Dublin. The snow is oppressive and it means that sooner or later everybody is going to die. The window represents the only separation between death and life. 8) Why were Gabriel’s tears ‘generous’? → He realizes that his was true love and hers will never be as strong as it was for Micheal. 9) What sound distracted him from his thoughts? → To distract Gabriel from his thoughts were a ‘few light taps upon the pane’. It was snowing again: so, he decided to hit the road towards westward. 10) What is the main theme of the passage and what triggers this theme? → The main theme of the passage is the death: the text ends with the term ‘dead’. Only Michael Furey is really dead, but Gabriel, his wife, Aunt Julia and all the others can also be considered dead, because they have lost their spirit, conviction, ambition and courage. This sensation is then extended to all the Dubliners and Irish (center  of paralysis*):  the snow unites the originally dead and living ones, who are the same because they’re all fading.His thoughts wander to past (Micheal Furey), present (Aunt Julia), future (what he understands during the snowfall: his wife has never loved him). Watching the snow, he has the impression of losing his identity and became one with the dead. SYMBOLS: -personal names:  Gabriel is connected to angel Gabriel (prince of fire and angel of death) and Gabriel as the protagonist is associated with fire and is spiritually death. *-Dubliners accept their conditions because they are not aware or do not have enough courage and they are spiritually weak and scared slaves of their familiar, moral, cultural, religious and political lives. Coming to awareness is the climax of the story (failure is a way to find a way out of paralysis)...