"The Dead" - response

In this post I will be discussing the similarities and differences between Joyce's "The Dead" and Ibsen's A Doll's House.

It is difficult to tell when "The Dead" is set, but it seems to be around the late 1800s in Ireland, which is the same time period as A Doll's House, except that that was set in the Netherlands.

The male main characters of these two works are also very similar. Gabriel is a successful, intellectual, upper-class man with a seemingly happy marriage, a patriarchal view of women (mostly his wife), and a desire to travel to the more sophisticated Continent. Torvald is a successful, upper-middle/upper class man with a seemingly happy marriage, a patriarchal view of all women, and a high moral code. Both men love and think of their wives in accordance with their societies' traditions: that she is in charge of the household, doesn't have complex thoughts, and exists for no other purposes other than to be his wife and to be a mother to his children (this last piece is very explicitly shown in Torvald). Due to their similar time periods and classes, both Gabriel's and Torvald's societies are similar as well. Both of them express something similar to Victorian age morality, with one of the gravest errors a person can make is lying, as expressed through Torvald's sentiments on the subject, and the lyrics to the song that the party guests sing to the aunts after Gabriel's speech.

The wives too, are very similar to each other (although not nearly as similar as their husbands). Both Nora and Gretta are not understood by their husbands and harbor secrets from their husbands that are revealed at the end of the work. However, their goals are very different. Nora wants Torvald to treat her as an equal, or at least as a fellow human being. She leaves her husband and children in order to discover herself.  It is hard to discern what Gretta desires, but I think she would like to be respected by Gabriel as an intellectual human being. She does not do anything but tell Gabriel the story of the boy she loved when she was young.

As similar as these characters, and the works they are a part of are, there are major differences in aspects not relating to the characters. "The Dead" takes place at Gabriel's old aunts' party, whereas A Doll’s House takes place in the Helmer family home over several days. "The Dead" alludes to political conflicts in Ireland and human mortality (hence the title), in contrast, A Doll's House seems timeless in terms of allusions to events and discusses illusion vs. reality of many things, as well as feminist ideals. "The Dead" as a whole is a much simpler plot structure than A Doll's House, but is much more dense than Ibsen's play and has complex themes concerning morality and patriotism (though A Doll's House has complicated themes in its own right, but due to the style of the play, they can appear to be much more transparent than Joyce's short story's themes).