Crux

1. Crux • 1. a vital, basic, decisive, or pivotal point: The crux of the trial was his whereabouts at the time of the murder. • 2. a cross. • 3. something that torments by its puzzling nature; a perplexing difficulty.

2. OED • fig.a. A difficulty which it torments or troubles one greatly to interpret or explain, a thing that puzzles the ingenuity; as ‘a textual crux’. Cf. CRUCIFY v. 2c. (Used by Sheridan and Swift with the sense ‘conundrum, riddle’.)  [Cf. G. kreuz, Grimm, 2178g, (quoted from Herder 1778, and Niebuhr); according to Hildebrand taken from the scholastic Latin crux interpretum, etc.]

3. Crux is the smallest of the 88 modern constellations, but is one of the most distinctive. Its name is Latin for cross, and it is dominated by a cross-shaped asterism that is commonly known as the Southern Cross.

4. Gabriel’s Mother • 1. Draw a character sketch of Gabriel’s mother. What does it reveal to you when Gabriel has chosen Gretta, a ‘country cute’, as girlfriend and later as wife against his mother’s wish? • 50-51/167 • Ambitious mother who named her two sons after the first Roman emperor and an archangel (Gabriel—Man of God)

5. CONSTANTINE • A religious name: Constantine was the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity.

6. Constantine •  officiallyFlavius Valerius Constantinus byname Constantine the Great, Latin in full Flavius Valerius Constantinus  (b. February 27, after ad 280?, Naissus, Moesia [now Niš, Serbia]—d. May 22, 337, Ancyrona, near Nicomedia, Bithynia [now İzmit, Turkey]), First Roman emperor to profess Christianity.

7. Religious toleration • Religious toleration is the condition of accepting or permitting others' religious beliefs and practices which disagree with one's own.

8. Gabriel’s mother thinly veiled as the author’s persona • Associative meaning • Constantine is best remembered for advocating religious toleration; • Gabriel as • Son of God

9. Joyce and Homer • 2. The crux of the text lies in this sentence: “Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age” (Dubliners 224). • A is better than B (implies only in certain ways, but restriction on selection is missing, making it hard for the reader to come to a conclusion; but Joyce did not claim that A is better than anything else. That implies Michael Furey’s model may not be the best)

10. “that other world”Hades • The reference to “that other world” as the realm of spirits recalls the scene in Homer’s Odyssey, where the ghost of Achilles addresses Odysseus: “Better, I say, to break sod as a farm hand for some poor countryman, on iron rations, than lord it over all the exhausted dead” (Odyssey 201).

11. Three brotherssons of the Titans Cronus and Rhea

12. Three Models of Living • In this sentence, three modes of living have been put in comparison and contrast: that of Michael Furey who has passed boldly into that other world in the full glory of some passion, and that of two aunts who have or will have faded and withered dismally with age. What is the third model of how to live and how to die that is not stated in the text?  

13. Reader’s assumptions & emotions • Imagine we run into something like what Gabriel has gone through; • Reader’s assumptions and emotions are often projected onto Gabriel’s person; • Many readers want to endorse Michael Furey’s romanticism; • Admirable as it is, Michael’s model seems irresponsible for Gretta; • Gabriel’s maturity and generosity

14. My son’s story • On a Mother’s Day, I invited my son to a dinner; • Tears in his eyes, my son told me his girlfriend was distracted by someone else; • My dramatic response—with a steak knife in my hand, my blood was boiling; • I confirmed his good taste; • We went to see The Winter’s Tale by Shakespeare in Ashland, OR

15. The Winter’s TaleConsequences of JealousyBy William Shakespeare, 1623 • two childhood friends: Le’ontes, King of Sicilia, and Poli’xenes, the King of Bohemia. Polixenes is visiting the kingdom of Sicilia, and is enjoying catching up with his old friend. However, after nine months, Polixenes yearns to return to his own kingdom to tend to affairs and see his son. Leontes desperately attempts to get Polixenes to stay longer, but is unsuccessful. Leontes then sends his wife, Queen Hermione, to try to persuade Polixenes. Hermione agrees and with three short speeches is successful.

16. Hades • Hades, Greek Aïdes (“the Unseen”), also called Pluto, or Pluton,  (“the Rich”), in Greek religion, son of the Titans Cronus and Rhea, and brother of the deities Zeus and Poseidon. After Cronus was killed, the kingdom of the underworld fell by lot to Hades. There he ruled with his queen, Per’sephone, over the infernal powers and over the dead, in what was often called “the House of Hades,” or simply Hades.

17. James Joyce vs. Homer • Though the most stable character in Dubliners, Gabriel sounds somewhat suicidal to some readers when meditating on his wife’s young lover’s early death: • “Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age” (Dubliners 224/197). This is the crux of the whole text.

18. Achilles chose to die young but in glory His mother warned him if he went to war, he would die young; Achilles’mother hid the youth in a girl’s dress; The allusion/reference to “that other world” as the realm of spirits recalls the scene in Homer’s Odyssey, where the ghost of Achilles addresses Odysseus: “Better, I say, to break sod as a farm hand for some poor countryman, on iron rations, than lord it over all the exhausted dead” (Odyssey 201). Two Value Codes

19. Is Gabriel Suicidal?Could You Write a Sequel to The Dead? • For the most part, their existence together seems dull as revealed in the text; • Is the life of Gabriel and Gretta worse than what Gretta would have had with Michael then? • What does it take to recover from a discovery like Gabriel makes? Could Gabriel overcome his paralysis and go on?

20. What’s Left Out, Unstated? • The general patterns in comparison & contrast are: good-better-best; bad-worse-worst. What is the best choice? It is up to the reader to infer. • Though “passing boldly into that other world in the full glory of some passion” is admirable, Joyce doesn’t claim that this option is better than anything else. • It is only a partial confirmation. Examined closely, a partial confirmation is a form of partial negation. Dr. Weizhi Gao

21. Two Models • Michael Furey • I love you and • I will die for you • I love you and • I will live for you

22. James Joyce’s Delicate Balance • Flip-flop Symbols, Tropes & Metaphors throughout: • Lily: Flowers used for funerals; but Easter symbolizes the Resurrection of the dead; • Incongruity: between the title, “The Dead” and time of the party, the high point of the Christmas / New Year celebration & the time for the feast of epiphany. • West: an established trope for death in the Western Literature: “The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward” (Dubliners 225). But The West also represents the true Ireland, and the home country of Gabriel’s wife, Gretta—who wants to vacation there.

23. List of deaths of family members, relatives, & friends in The Dead: _______________; _______________; _______________; _______________; _______________; List of deaths in fiction, plays, ballads, songs & paintings: _______________; _______________; _______________; _______________; _______________; Death Weighs Heavily ThroughoutFramed by The Sisters & The Dead

24. Ambiguity is not the same as Ambivalence • The most striking strength of “The Dead” lies in its delicate balance, and more important, something shadowed, unstated, & veiled. This has made the story a great challenge in literary interpretation. • Wayne Booth puts the most shrewdly, “In short, the author’s judgment is always present, always evident to anyone who knows how to look for it.”[1]But this doesn’t help much, it seems. [1] Wayne Booth in The Rhetoric of Fiction. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1961), page 20.

25. Putting Things in Perspectives • Structurally & Thematically, without The Dead, Dubliners would have been quite different. Before this story, most characters are in some way paralyzed or stuck in repeating patterns (as in Counterparts, the most symmetrical story that shows how terrible patterns in Irish life are repeated). • The Dead signals a turn towards what I would call Joyce’s Counterpoint Narrative that weaves together multiple story lines into a new story, therefore breaking the new ground not only technically but also thematically.

26. Thematically a new turn • More mature as a writer • Midway between his play Exiles (1918) and his masterpiece Ulysses (1922); • Influence of Ibsen faded out;

27. Joyce’s New Perspective on his Home Country • Irish Warmth, Generosity & Hospitality vs. Joyce’s experience in Rome—In September of 1906, Joyce wrote: • “Sometimes thinking of Ireland it seems to me that I have been unnecessarily harsh. I have reproduced (in Dubliners at least) none of the attraction of the city for I have never felt at my ease in any city since I left it except in Paris. I have not reproduced its ingenuous insularity and its hospitality.[1] [1]http://www.mendele.com/WWD/WWDdead.notes.html

28. Recurrent Explorations • The Dead in Dubliners—Gabriel’s generous tears. • Gabriel has been surprised and wounded. He feels his identity is under attack; but this makes a portal of great discoveries about other people, about his home country; & about himself. • However, in “A Painful Case,” a man who cannot be generous causes the suicide of the only woman who ever loved him, a counterpoint/counterpart to “The Dead” • Joyce treats this theme elsewhere, less satisfactorily in Exiles but more fully in Ulysses.

29. Generosity: A Consistent Theme • Gabriel weeps (as Jesus weeps), but no longer for himself; • “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 vulgarians and idealizing his own clownish lusts, the pitiable ‘fatuous fellow he had caught a glimpse of in the mirror. Instinctively he turned his back more to the light lest she might see the shame that burned upon his forehead” (221).

30. Truly Connected to the Living through the Dead • Generous tears filled Gabriel’s eyes. He had never felt like that towards any woman but he knew that such a feeling must be love. • 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. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. 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. 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.

31. If you were to write a Sequel to The Dead • A moment of Pro’lepsis--The representation or taking of something future as already done or existing; anticipation: Gabriel has imaginatively visited Michael Fury’s grave at the end of the story. • Who will be there hand in hand by his side? • Is Gabriel going to commit suicide? • Is Gabriel going to leave Grette for good?