In the short story "The Dead", James Joyce presents his character Gabriel as pretentious and misogynistic by emphasizing his wealth, education and presumed superiority over women of his company. Gabriel, who constantly needs reassurance from women to feel validated, uses his intellect and money to remain superior to the various female characters. Joyce juxtaposes Gabriel's character with numerous women to emphasize his superiority complex by using dominant female characters who continually humiliate him, causing Gabriel to abuse his arrogant tendencies. Thus, Joyce critiques the way men traditionally dominate women in society by defamiliarizing submissive women and replacing them with these dominant, outspoken women with whom Gabriel must interact. Joyce also created this character to force his readers to anticipate the inevitability of tragedy as foreshadowed by Shakespeare's references and by Gabriel's wife, Gretta, for ultimate revenge; the death of love. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Throughout the story, there are many moments where Gabriel humiliates women. This is an obvious way for Joyce to further his critique of how men treated women in the early 20th century. Joyce defamiliarizes typical submissive women and replaces them with outspoken, independent female characters who manage to continually embarrass Gabriel, which is easily noticed. One of the best examples is when Gabriel enters the party and is assisted by a young girl, Lily, in the pantry; he asks if she would marry soon and she replies: “The men who are now are only palaver and what they can get out of you” (2284). Lily quickly made it clear that she had no intention of getting married and was not polite about it like a typical woman should have been. Gabriel's discomfort confirms his demand for control of the situation. “Gabriel blushed as if he felt he had made a mistake and, without looking at her, he took off his galoshes” (2284). Joyce cleverly added “without looking at her” (2284) because this demonstrates his inability to cope with the dominant responses. females. If Gabriel had instead laughed and agreed with her, it would completely transform the text. Joyce also created Gabriel as a misogynist to highlight the amazing Irish male population of his time who looked like him, as well as the growing feminist population fighting for equal rights. (Catherine Phil MacCarthy, 2015). After Gabriel's embarrassment, he tried to take control of the situation by giving Lily "Christmas money", which shows how he uses wealth to control women. After giving her money, he left immediately to escape the situation, but the effects of his honesty persisted. We see how much Gabriel's character is shaken even after moving away from her: “He was still upset by the young girl's bitter and sudden response” (2285). Gabriel's response clarifies how abnormal it was for women of her era to be so outspoken in their speech. Joyce's critique of this situation is clear when analyzing the context; he wants Gabriel's sexist views to be reinforced and corrected. Joyce immediately exposes Gabriel's fragile superiority complex to provide the reader with an introduction to the type of misogyny present in the story and how it will be dealt with throughout the text. Gabriel's education is also a vindication, in his mind,for his superiority, and Joyce juxtaposed his character with a woman who received the same upbringing as Gabriel to further debunk his views. Gabriel had simplified his speech because he thought his “superior education” (2285) would make him look ridiculous because no one could be as intelligent as him. Immediately regretting his "intelligent" speech, Joyce parodies Gabriel's reaction by emphasizing that it would be a failure. Gabriel's character assumes that everyone around him is less intelligent and worse yet, he is too intelligent. Joyce included this to highlight the arrogant personality that Gabriel possessed in order to create a situation to diffuse it. It was extremely important to prefigure this reflection on “higher intelligence” for his conversation with Ms. Ivors. Mrs. Ivors has a similar education and career to Gabriel, thus making a woman Gabriel's equal; how uncomfortable. Mrs. Ivors, another forward-thinking female character like Lily, immediately embarrasses Gabriel by declaring, "Aren't you ashamed of yourself?" (2290) because he wrote for the Daily Express, a newspaper in Western Britain at a time when Ireland was becoming independent from Great Britain. Gabriel, visibly disturbed and offended, retorts: “Why should I be ashamed of myself? Gabriel asked, blinking to try to smile. (2290) it is obvious that by blinking and trying to smile, he is hiding his discomfort at being in the presence of another outspoken woman. This enhances how Gabriel cannot handle confronting women, a statement created by Joyce to highlight the changes that needed to be made in society. Joyce wants to contrast this fragile but sexist man by juxtaposing him with these women, thereby criticizing the way men cannot cooperate with women. Through Gabriel's point of view, we get a personal look at misogynistic thought processes, so any man reading this could relate towards such a character would be forced to see how ignorant his attitude is. Later, we see that Gabriel's ego could only be reconciled through Mrs. Ivors' disinterest in power. Immediately after explaining herself, "Gabriel felt more at ease" (2290), which further justifies Joyce's goal of reorienting women's place in society by emphasizing Gabriel's constant need for control . Gabriel is unable to deal with assertive women, which we see through his uncomfortable nature when talking to women, which reminds us how fragile a sexist man's ego is. Joyce created this fragile character to highlight the ridiculous attributes of the "modern Irishman" to reinforce his goal of redefining patriarchal society, as well as to valorize dominant women to show that it is valid for women to be in control. We see that Gabriel loves his wife very much and expresses his emotions after the party. However, he idealizes Gretta due to her pleasing feminine aesthetic and inferior education, not because of her as a person but rather as an ideal asset to him. This is seen in the text after leaving the party, “she walked before him so lightly and so straight” (2305) and “She seemed so fragile to him that he wanted to defend her” (2305). The thoughts highlight the typical feminine beauty that is so attractive: light, well-posed and frail. Although Gabriel's character seems to have a revelation of love and affection for his wife, it is clear that the reason he loves her is because she is inferior. . Joyce here criticizes the fact that men see women only as objects and that beauty cannot define a woman's purpose in the world.. 2016.