During the early nineteen hundreds, the encounter that Gabriel had with Lily was very inappropriate. Gabriel tried to talk to Lily about marriage and such, which was not appropriate for the occasion or possibly ever. After the conversation, which was brief, Gabriel was angry because of the way she had acted when he tried to cover up his unsuitable actions towards Lily with money. ...
During a dinner party at his Aunt Julia and Aunt Kate's home in Dublin, he is in a cheerful mood to begin with, but as soon as he speaks with Lily, his mood is shaken. He didn't mean to make Lily rebuff, he was merely joking with her, but as Dublin is seen as dark and oppressive in the other stories, it is still oppressive in The Dead as shown by Lily who complains about the men in the city, which in turn ruins Gabriel's mood. ...
Later he tries to become warm to Lily and has a conversation with her, but when their discussion results in a misunderstanding the story begins to be told in an omnisciently in Gabriel's point of view. ... After he mistakenly offended Lily, he worries whether or not he will offend other people with the speech he had written. ...
In the collection of short stories titled Dubliners, Joyce tries to show through his short stories a wide range of characters that exhibit different views and ideas on life. Gabriel Conroy in The Dead as well as James Duffy in A Painful Case have the same egoistic views on love and marriage as well ...
