The One Inevitability

In the final scene of James Joyce's "The Dead," Gretta has gone to sleep and Gabriel is reflecting on the events of the night. His thoughts drift to the his wife's former lover who gave up life just for her. This makes him reflect on why he did it, was she that beautiful in her youth. "He did not like to say even to himself that her face was no longer beautiful but he knew that it was no longer the face for which Michael Furey had braved death." He first reflects on lost beauty and thinks of what age leads to and then pictures himself at his aunt's funeral. This leads him to think more of his own life and mortality. How the coming of death is inevitable and how it is better to go boldly into the other world of death rather than just let it come. He then questions whether his love for his wife is as profound as that of Michael Furey's. "He had never felt like that himself towards any woman but he knew that such a feeling must be love." As he questions his own love for his wife he begins to drift into sleep seeing images of the dead Michael outside next to a dripping tree. He finally falls to sleep as snow falls outside, on Michael Furey's grave, on Ireland and on his own life, signaling the coming of death that all beings of the Universe must face.