Beyond the Uncle Charles Principle

This essay takes Hugh Kenner's "Uncle Charles Principle" and finds it working in ways more subtle and strange than Kenner ever claimed. Using Kleinian psychoanalytic theory, it argues that the narration of "The Dead" forces readers into an impossible position as they try to sort through problems Joyce unravels at the heart of idiolect, intimacy, and narration itself. In the end, Gabriel's snow winds up saying a lot less, and Mrs. Malins winds up saying a lot more than we might previously have believed.