Towards the end of the short story, Gabriel Conroy goes to a hotel with his wife hoping to share a romantic night together. He recalls an entire list of memories of their past that, for him, are some of the most important moments in their relationship. When Gretta (his wife) emotionally recounts the story of a former and deceased love interest, it's clear to Gabriel that his marriage hasn't been what he might have wished. In this sobering moment, he thinks about the dead and their ties to the living.
"Generous tears filled Gabriel's eyes... His soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead. He was conscious of, but could not apprehend, their wayward and flickering existence. 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."
James Joyce calls this "the epiphany" - the moment when a character goes through something that becomes manifest, or there is a deep realization that changes their self or world view (awe too as been associated with a transcendent moment, a spiritual or secular realization moment). Where Gabriel had earlier made a division between the past of the dead and the present of the living, he now humbles himself and recognizes the lines between life and death are blurred. He sees himself "flickering" in the place where the living and dead meet. Michael Furey's memory lives on in Gretta's life. As Gabriel looks out of the window at the snow, Joyce continues to blur the lines between life and death.
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| Creative Commons 2.0 License Dean Molyneaux / geograph.ie Ballynahinch, City Republic of Ireland |
"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... 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. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead."
Joyce uses this epiphany moment for the character as an epiphany moment (or a humbling-awe experience) for readers as well. Furey's grave is being covered in snow, just as the snow covers those living. Life and death is "covered in snow," but the difference is this: will we be remembered after death? We are humbled to think that the memory of someone dead could be stronger than the memory of someone alive.
This reminds me of +Jane Packard's research on awe vs pragmatism. She discusses how Wordsworth wrote his poetry in "awe-land." His experiences with awe are in literature and daffodils where pragmatism and death are the end of awe. Joyce blurs the lines of life and death, exploring the idea that death can provide more life because of living memories (like Furey's life in Gretta's memories), where our pragmatic lives can become mundane and perhaps meaningless (like Gabriel's life).
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