Passing boldly into that other world of holes: narrativity and subjectivity in James Joyce's "The Dead."

Studies in Short Fiction, Summer, 1995 by Sean P. Murphy

The "end" of "The Dead" and the "meaning" or "truth" associated therewith have been the sources of contenfious critical debates. Some critics claim -- as David Cowart does -- that Gabriel "achieves a vision of possible renewal for himself and for his country" (504), while others assert a more pessimistic "truth." For instance, Gerald Doherty maintains that "the end [of the narrative] -- instead of synthesizing -- deconstructs the plots that precede it (226) and that the deconstruction of plots erases the difference(s) in -- or thc virgules between -- various binarisms structuring Gabriel's narrative/ text/life and leaves him in a rather bleak "cosmic abyss" (235). Whether one reads the end of "The Dead" in a positive or negative light, virtually all critics focus upon the "truth" illuminated in the narrator's famous proclamation regarding Gabriel's future plans: "The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward" (Joyce 223). What could the journey westward possibly present? The multitude of answers offered in response to this question problematizes any claims of stability in language or of consistency in thc issuing forth of meaning(s).

Critics are apt to claim "The Dead" in fact has a Brooksian end informing the beginning and middle of the story -- some even claim it illuminates all of Dubliners-because Joyce's tempting linear narrative construction hails them into a position similar to Gabriel's. That is, they are interpellated into a position within a symbolic network that satisfies their desire to feel "whole," total, totalized. Subjects place faith in the power of the symbolic; they believe language will fill their lack even though they know differently. An example of the desire to symbolize that which is unsymbolizable (the split) is Frank Kermode's contention that ends are necessary in "mak[ing] possible a satisfying consonance mith the origins and the middle" (17). The individual wants to "know" and symbolize its own beginning (the primal scene) and its middle (life) through an understanding of the end (death). Of course, knowledge of one's death and primal scene is a complete logical impossibility. However, subjects incorporate the real component of death into the symbolic through funeral rituals and they fantasize about their parents engaging in sexual intercourse. So, in a sense, subjects experience their beginnings and ends via symbolized and ritualized events centered on others. Although subjects may bury many people and watch others copulate, they remain unable to materialize the reality of their primal scene and end/death. Nevertheless, subjects and critics alike willingly submit to the law of the symbolic if it offers some hope of filling the lack, somc promise of holding the power to symbolize the elusive real and thc object a. The journey westward upon which Gabriel should embark is an example of a subject doing just this. Because critics desire to symbolize their own lack, they fall prey to Joyce's seductive yet subversive use of the linear narrative paradigm in their readings of Gabriel and of the supposed epiphanic end of "The Dead Joyce's text is seductive because it allows the reader to indulge in the fetishistic split between knowing and believing in unity and subversive because he does not provide an end, does not adhere to the law of linearity that demands an illuminative moment that makes sense of (totalizes) the fragmented discourse that precedes it.