One thing that interested me was the relationship between Gabriel and his wife, it’s not something that interested me until page 78 where they depart the party, “She was walking on before him so lightly and so erect that he longed to run after her noiselessly, catch her by the shoulders and say something foolish and affectionate into her ear.” The seemed distant throughout the event and barely interacted, it made me wonder if their marriage was not going so well, the fact that they are not even walking together is also peculiar to me.
In the final paragraph on page 78 we get a clue as to how their marriage is going, “He longed to recall to her those moments, to make her forget the years of their dull existence together and to remember only their moments of ecstasy.” It seems that he views their marriage as boring, taking a turn for the dull as the years went by, remembering fondly their first times together and yearning for those days to return. Until that point we just get a few hints of their relationship, the fact that they don’t stay close throughout the party, her making fun of his insistence on using “galoshes”, him reluctant to share his “row” with Molly Ivors, all gives us hints that maybe everything is not going as well as it should, and that “snapshot” of just a few sentences on page 78 is the final clue needed to put it all together.
At the beginning of the story I kind of had a feeling that the relationship between Gabriel and his wife, Gretta, might have had complications because Joyce added that part where Gabriel and Lily were in the pantry and it seemed as if Gabriel was fond of Lily and was being kind of flirtatious towards her. Also throughout the party Gabriel and Gretta wasn’t really seen together. During the “Lancers”, Gabriel was partnered with Miss Ivors and it makes you question why Gabriel didn’t partner with his wife for the dance. Also on page 64, according to Joyce “were you dancing”, says Gabriel.” Gretta was dancing with someone and Gabriel didn’t even realize that she was dancing because he had to ask in order to find out if she had been dancing. Joyce does, indeed, drops subtle clues as to the relationship between them and then she ties it all together and inform readers of the true nature of Gretta’s behavior.
I do agree with your point about their marriage not being all-to-well but not as early in the story as you. Early in The Dead the relationship between Gabriel and Gretta seemed classy, cute and you sense some intimacy from this segment “O, but you’ll never guess what he makes me wear now! 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. The two aunts laughed heartily, too, for Gabriel’s solicitude was a standing joke with them.”(pg.58) But because of this segment here where they are in a room alone together and Gabriel is trying to get intimate and Gretta breaks down you see something different. “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.” (pg.82) Here you see the gravity of the ecstasy of their relationship was seen more by Gabriel then by Gretta and what Gabriel felt, he might have been more alone in it than he thought.
Gabriel and Gretta have a very distant relationship. Throughout reading the story I didn’t even know at first that they were together. To me the whole story was just random things going on in the house up until they left for the hotel. It does not look like they love each other as much as they want to. Gabriel wants to have a hold on Gretta, have a claim on her or in other words he wants to be “master”. With Gretta talking about her past love life with Michael Furey he feels sad that he never felt an aching and passionate love that Michael Furey had for his wife. He then notices that his speech was wrong. The past and the dead still impact our lives today and can’t be forgotten or left behind by the present and living life.