As the snow fell on Dublin, it was almost as if the city and its people would be frozen together. Dublin and all that it stood for would persist, while the lives of its citizens continued, never truly able to escape the city's grip. One man in particular, dejected, looked out the window at the bleak, frosty world. Gabriel Conroy's complex and sophisticated life, as he saw it, seemed to have slipped out of his control. The world as he had imagined began to disintegrate, leaving with it generous tears streaming from his eyes. James Joyce, the author of the insignificant epics of the ordinary people of Dublin found in Dubliners, places prodigious importance on his finale, The Dead. Here, Joyce attempts to convey to the audience a moment of epiphany in Gabriel's life, a moment that fills Gabriel's eyes with generous tears. Gabriel Conroy encompasses the traits of the protagonists of the short stories leading up to The Dead. Class-conscious, socially awkward, angry, and frustrated with love; Gabriel is a complex case, dealing with the annual social gathering that takes place within the framework of the story. Ultimately, Gabriel is struck with grief and comes to a cold conclusion after his interactions with the many characters throughout the novella. Although the tears may seem like an attempt to gain sympathy from the audience, the real focus is whether the Gabriel shown near the end of the short story is different from the Gabriel at the beginning. Rather than a change in his behavior, the interactions throughout the story paint a new view of Gabriel's life. Through analysis of Gabriel's thoughts and desires at the annual party thrown by his aunts Kate and Julia Morkan, the audience digests the...... middle of paper ...... Gabriel saw it , would rise on every person. of the world in which he had once felt so principal. Generous tears were soon flowing from Gabriel's eyes as he looked out the window at the snow falling over Dublin. Life had become a measure of the impact one leaves, with which Gabriel's life had not been as profound as he had always been convinced. “His soul slowly faded away as he heard the snow fall faintly across the universe and fall faintly, like the descent of their final end, upon all the living and the dead.” (249) Death, just like snow that evening, would fall on everyone and Gabriel was left in tears knowing that his life was so empty compared to that of his wife's first lover. All that would remain for men is the shadow they leave in the world, that of Gabriel, darker than the others...