James Joyce once wrote to his wife, “Let me love you, Nora. Do not kill my love.” This is very indicative of how he writes his character Gabriel in the short story, The Dead.
I’ve joked before that The Dead is the story where men discover they need to love their wives in order for their wives to love them back. But it runs deeper than this. It’s one of the most vulnerable piece Joyce wrote as it closely relates to his troubled life.
In short do I think the Conroy marriage can be saved? No.
I believe this for one many reason: we humans cannot gain back lost time. No matter how much both Gretta and Gabriel try and reconcile their differences (which one can argue it innate and can be changed but that’s a different point), they’re always going to circle to the fact that they wasted so much time being indifferent.
One more thing, Gretta and Gabriel are from different parts of Ireland, they like different things. It’s a wonder they were even able to find enough in common to get married.
That’s right, it’s not just Gabriel that has to change it’s Gretta too. To ask two people to change their personalities so drastically is impossible.
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