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Definition of Imagery
Imagery, in any sort of writing, refers to descriptive language that engages the human senses. For instance, the following lines from Robert Frost's poem "After Apple-Picking" contain imagery that engages... read full definition
Imagery, in any sort of writing, refers to descriptive language that engages the human senses. For instance, the following lines from Robert Frost's poem "After... read full definition
Imagery, in any sort of writing, refers to descriptive language that engages the human senses. For instance, the following lines... read full definition
Section 1
Explanation and Analysis—Gabriel:
“The Dead” is notable for its striking, prolonged physical descriptions of various characters in the story, including Gabriel Conroy, its protagonist:
He was a stout tallish young man. The high colour of his cheeks pushed upwards even to his forehead where it scattered itself in a few formless patches of pale red; and on his hairless face there scintillated restlessly the polished lenses and the bright gilt rims of the glasses which screened his delicate and restless eyes. His glossy black hair was parted in the middle and brushed in a long curve behind his ears where it curled slightly beneath the groove left by his hat.
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Section 3
Explanation and Analysis—Soul Swooned Slowly:
The final image in “The Dead” is arguably the story’s most famous passage, and one of its most evocative. As Gabriel falls asleep next to Gretta, who has just revealed a crucial memory from her childhood to her husband—her belief that a young boy, Michael Furey, died for her—snow is falling, both outside of Gabriel’s windows and all throughout Ireland:
Unlock with LitCharts A+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. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. [...] 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.
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Explanation and Analysis—Epiphany:
Toward the end of “The Dead,” Gabriel realizes that his wife, Gretta, has been “comparing him in her mind with another”: Michael Furey, a boy with whom she had a brief relationship when she was younger, and who died of consumption after confessing his love for her on a cold night. In a crucial moment, Gabriel experiences a dramatic, clarifying vision of himself, contrasted with Gretta’s memory of Furey as a kind of martyr:
Unlock with LitCharts A+A shameful consciousness of his own person assailed him. He saw himself as a ludicrous figure, acting as a pennyboy for his aunts, a nervous well-meaning sentimentalist, orating to vulgarians and idealising his own clownish lusts, the pitiable fatuous fellow he had caught a glimpse of in the mirror.
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