hometown glory.
It did not come as much of a surprise when the
majority of the class had an opposing view on the character of Gabriel Conroy. It
was ironic and slightly poetic how everyone else despised the one character I
sympathized for all year. One said that it was the description of Conroy that grossed
her out, “the high color of his cheeks pushed upwards even to his forehead…and
on his hairless face there…bright gilt rims of the glasses…. His glossy black
hair was parted in the middle and brushed in a long curve behind his ears…
(Norton, 2284).” So Conroy looked like the classic computer nerd who ate lunch
in the library, I do not think any of us in room 224 dated the quarterback when
we were in high school. I could be wrong about this assumption however, just
like my classmates are wrong about the personality and moral character of
Gabriel Conroy. I read the research, I know that most if not all of the
literary critiques and reviews do not fall in my favor, but my goal is to add
another voice into the mix, to prove that Gabriel Conroy is rather just
painfully shy, insecure, and madly in love with his wife.
According to Daniel Schwarz in his writing, Gabriel Conroy's Psyche: Character as
Concept in Joyce's ‘The Dead,’ James Joyce,
“created characters who were metaphors for
himself, who were the means by which he explored and defined identity. Joyce’s
fiction draws upon the actual-the life he lived-and…he creates masques for what
he fears to become…and his appearance, like his character, is a version of what
Joyce feared of becoming: bourgeois, conventional…(Bedford 103).”
Joyce feared that if he did not get out of Dublin,
his hometown, he would become Conroy, a man in unfashionable dress (no one
quite understood the practicality of the galoshes) who was painfully shy, and
forced to be with company he did not particularly like. Those fears mimic the
ones that most of us have once we graduate high school, that we will not be
able to escape and will be forced to hangout with the Mr. Browne, the one who
was always trying to spike the punch at Prom, and the Mary Jane, the girl who
got the lead part in the play because of her parents’ connections rather than
her talent, of our town. This is a rational fear to have and one that Conroy
must have had as well when he went off to University. Unfortunate or fortunate,
Conroy was called back to Dublin to take care of his three aunts, orphaned
cousin, and support their music academy. “Gabriel has a desperate need to be
needed, and we realize that he is a family caretaker of a kind; he has been
reduced to that role and he relishes that role. Kate says to Gretta: ‘I always
feel easier in my mind when he’s here’ (Bedford 107).” Conroy is a family man,
he left his University and his like-minded peers, came home to work as a
schoolteacher and help out the family business. His freelancing at the Daily Express is not a political stance
as rudely assumed by Ms. Ivors, but an outlet for him to keep up with his
passion, writing.
From the very beginning of the story, Conroy is
introduced as an anticipated house guest, “they [Kate and Julia] wondered what
could be keeping Gabriel and that was what brought them every two minutes to
the banisters to ask Lily if Gabriel had come…he was their favorite nephew
(Norton, 2283).” He is also shown to be in a cheerful mood with the use of “he
said in a friendly tone,” and “said Gabriel gaily (Norton 2284).” These
descriptors are used in Conroy’s conversation with Lily, the caretaker’s
daughter, as he is giving her his coat and goulashes. Gabriel’s intention was not to offend her
when he mentioned marriage, “O then,’ said Gabriel gaily, ‘I suppose we’ll be
going to your wedding one of these fine days with your young man, eh?” He was
desperately grasping at straws for small talk for the younger generation is
strange to him and the weather had already been brought up.
When Lily “glanced back at him over her shoulder and
said with great bitterness…”, Gabriel is embarrassed for saying the wrong thing
and clueless of how to respond so he hands her some money and leaves the
situation as quickly as possible. Joyce writes that Conroy literally runs away,
“he walked rapidly toward the door,” and “almost trotting to the stairs,
(Norton 2285).” Conroy is shocked and at a loss for a comeback, a quite often
personality trait of mine, and while I do not have the monetary resources to
pay off everyone who hears me say something embarrassing, the need to disappear
immediately is something I can relate to.
Schwarz does not approve of the way Conroy retreats
into his own head to review his speech. “when Lily distances his efforts to
charm and to be fatherly with what he takes as a rebuke…he characteristically
finds refuge in self-importance and begins to look at his speech (Bedford 106).”
Conroy is nervous about his speech, he has stage fright. He likes the quote
from Robert Browning but is certain that no one is going to understand it and
then think of him as a moron. He comes off as pompous because he is worried
about his higher education, not because he believes it makes him better than
everyone else, but knows that if he does not use layman’s terms, he will be
regarded as a pompous man full of insecurities. “He would only make himself
ridiculous by quoting poetry to them which they could not understand. They
would think that he was airing his superior education (Norton 2285).” This is a
rational fear for those returning home for winter break, a question everyone
loves to ask, “what classes are you taking,” often has the answer everyone hates,
“Survey of British Literature and Thermodynamics.” For college students with
family members who did not follow the path of higher education, this question
is often easier by leaving
it at simple “English and math.”
There are a few small personality traits
of Conroy that are often misconstrued by those looking to paint him as
self-aggrandizing. He is polite and courteous to Ms. Ivors as she accuses him
of being a West Briton. “He wanted to say that literature was above politics.
But they were friends of many years’ standing and their careers had been
parallel, first at University and then as teachers: he could not risk a grandiose
phrase with her.” He thinks about past conversations and analyzes them. He is
seen later on still thinking about the exchange with Ms. Ivors, “perhaps he
ought not to have answered her like that…but she was trying to make him look
ridiculous.” Rather than a heated comeback, he replied in a way that made Ms.
Ivors claim that she was joking and dropped the conversation, “trying to smile
he murmured lamely that he saw nothing political in writing reviews for books
(Norton 2291, 2292).”
He employs a sarcastic humor at the
dinner table, “Now, if anyone wants a little more of that vulgar people call
stuffing, let him or her speak,” and another “I’ll engage they did, said
Gabriel, but they forget my wife here takes three mortal hours to dress herself
(Norton 2296, 2283).”
Schwarz accuses him of narcissism,
“Gabriel is paralytically self-conscious. Isn’t part of Gabriel always standing
to one side watching his behavior? He thinks he is being watched and talked
about more than he is (Bedford 109).” I
find this accusation hard to stomach, for while it is true, he does review his
behavior and worry about what others will say, but it is presented as a trait
of an inflated ego hoping to shake off insecurities, rather than a common human
trait shared by practically everyone.
The majority of readers interpret the
story as a metaphor for colonization and Conroy as the classic chauvinist who does
not want to give up his ruling as the patriarch of the family, this is a shame
for they miss out on the romance of it all, they are blind to how much Conroy
loves and adores his wife. When he arrives at the academy, he tells his plans
of hiring a babysitter for the children back home and reserving a fancy hotel
room in the city. He marries Gretta without his mother’s blessing and admires
her for helping his mother despite the fact, “Some slighting phrases she had
used still rankled in his memory; she had once spoken of Gretta as being
country cute and that was not true of Gretta at all. It was Gretta who had
nursed her during all her last long illness (Norton 2289).” While in
conversation she often distracts him; “she broke out into a peal of laughter
and glanced at her husband, whose admiring and happy eyes had been wandering
from her dress to her face and hair.”
It is common to read his admiration as
possession as if he saw his wife as property. The classmates came to a
consensus that he was feeling lust, not love, but I see the writing
contradictory to that opinion, “at last she turned towards them and Gabriel saw
that there was color on her cheeks and that her eyes were shining. A sudden
tide of joy went leaping out of his heart,” and “Gabriel’s eyes were still bright with
happiness. The blood went bounding along his veins; and the thoughts went
rioting through his brain, proud, joyful, tender, valorous (Norton 2286, 2289,
2304, 2305).”
When he and Gretta arrive at the hotel
room, it is painfully obvious to the reader that Conroy wants to have sex with
her. He gets nervous at the thought, “thumping of his own heart against his
ribs,” and rather than make the first couple of moves, he wants to see that
Gretta wants him just as much as he wants her. This is where the entire story
falls apart. There is a sensation of horror as Gretta waxes poetic about the
boy of her youth as she and Conroy walk through the empty streets of the city towards
the hotel.
Many
harp on Conroy and his reaction to Gretta’s confession of a great love, mainly
because he fails to do much other than watch her fall asleep as he sits by the
window. This is the scene that confuses me the most when others say how pompous
and rude he is, for my heart aches every time I read it. Throughout the entire
story, Conroy falls in love with his wife, thinks about how beautiful she is,
has flashbacks to times of love letters and other sweet memories, he cannot
wait to take her back to the hotel so they could be alone and he can finally
say everything he had been thinking at the dinner and hear the sweet things she
has thought in return. “While he had been full of memories of their secret life
together, full of tenderness and joy and desire, she had been comparing him in
her mind with another.” To find out that this is not the case at all and that
not only has his wife been swooning about another man all night and quite
possibly throughout their entire marriage is painfully shocking and enough to
make one ill. It makes me wonder if you could ever truly know someone or better
yet if you could ever truly know that they love you. Here was Conroy still in
madly in love with his wife after all this time only to be left staring at the
snow, questioning if she had ever really felt the same, if he had been
competing with a first love even after all these years. I cannot fathom why I
was the only one in the class who could have understood the brevity of this
scene. Joyce brought tears to my eyes as the story closed, “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
(Norton 2310, 2311).”
It is difficult to see the opposing
interpretation of Conroy’s character, for he embodies the very traits shared
with other leading characters in both book and film. He is shy, courteous to
others, supportive of his family, in love with his wife, and finds a way to pursue
his passion despite the circumstances keeping him where he is.
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