Reading Notes W12: Joyce, Part B

• Lily is the caretaker's daughter (178)
• Misses Morkan's annual dance is a great affair (178)
• Lily is done with school and does not go to school anymore (179)
• Gabriel gave a coin to Lily because it's Christmas time (180)
• Gabriel was the favorite nephew (180)
• Gabriel was about to ask his aunt about something but she went to gaze after he sister (182)
• Aunt Kate says she feels easier when Gabriel is around (182)
• The characters were going to dance. Quadrilles, as one woman said. (183)
• Gabriel was irritated by the beeswax on the floor (184)
• Amy writes for The Daily Express (185)
• Every year, Gabriel goes for a cycling tour (186)
• Gabriel is sick of his own country (187)
• His answer made him upset and he tried hiding it by dancing with great energy (187)
• There are two lines early on page 188 where Joyce describes how Gabriel said something. "Said Gabriel coldly" and "said Gabriel moodily" (188). This isn't significant to the reading, it just caught my attention since I always hear different things about writing the way a character says something. Some English teachers have taught me this a smart thing to do whereas other Creative Writing teachers have told me to leave it at "said" and nothing more.
• Aunt Kate fiercely told Mary Jane that she does in fact know all about the honor of God but feels it isn't honorable for the pope to turn women out of the choirs who have been there all their lives (190)
• Aunt Kate wondered where Gabriel was since he needed to carve the goose. He came back and was described as being "ready to carve a flock of geese, if necessary" (191). I thought this was funny.
• Gabriel is an expert at carving meat (191)
• Pudding was brought to the table once Gabriel finished (193)
• Monks never spoke, got up at two in the morning, and slept in their coffins (193)
• The coffin is to remind them of their "last end" (194)
• Gabriel expresses his feelings that their country doesn't have any traditions worth noting (195)
• "I will not linger on the past" - Gabriel (195)
• They sing "For they are jolly gay fellows" (196)
• Gabriel was caught off guard by Gretta's sudden kiss (203)
• He wanted to know what she was thinking about. She said she was thinking about a song called The Lass of Aughrim (204)
• She explained that someone she knew used to sing it. Gabriel got jealous because it was a boy. Gretta clarified that the boy dies at age 17 (204)
• She cried herself to sleep by thinking about it. Gabriel held her hand for a moment but let go so that she could grieve (206)
• Gabriel loves her (206)
• "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 (207).

Joyce, James. "The Dead." The Norton Anthology World Literature, edited by Martin Puchner, Third Edition, vol. F, W. W. Norton 2012, pp. 174-207