Abstract

From the perspective of Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy, Joyce’s “The Dead” takes on new meaning as a struggle between the Apollonian (educated and repressed Gabriel) and the Dionysian (drunken, laughing Freddy Malins). The Nietzschean synthesis into something akin to tragedy in the story’s enigmatic and ambiguous conclusion is enriched by the long-overlooked suggestions in the text that Gretta may have been pregnant with Michael Furey’s child during their farewell at the postlapsarian “end of the garden” in the rain.

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