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Dubliners

A song recalls a life Gabriel did not know. Read The Dead through memory and the limits of knowing another person.

James Joyce · 1914 publication. The chronology uses the work’s publication year. Images and translations are identified separately. Chronology section: 1900 to 1945.

Fiction: Short storyInterpretive readingMemoryEmotionSelf & personality

Author and origin
James Joyce (Ireland)Original language: English. The chronology uses the work’s publication year. Images and translations are identified separately.
Genre and form
Fiction (Short story)Novels, novellas, short stories, and drama read through an interpretive psychological lens, never as clinical cases.
Pairing and evidence
Interpretive readingAn editorial psychological reading of fiction or memoir. A paper is paired only where the connection is substantive; the narrative is not empirical evidence.
Sources inspected
2 text/abstract inspected, 1 metadata checked (of 3)1 with the primary text or archive/edition record checked, 1 with an indexed abstract read, 1 with bibliographic metadata checked, 0 not verified.

Interpretive thematic pairingPaired academic work

Conway, M. A., & Pleydell-Pearce, C. W. (2000). The construction of autobiographical memories in the self-memory system. Psychological Review, 107(2), 261–288. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.107.2.261Consulted source

Source independence: Independent of the book’s author.

How it connects: An editorial thematic comparison. This paper does not study the literary work or establish an influence on its author.

Exact claim scope: The theoretical model links constructed personal memories with autobiographical knowledge and current goals of the working self. Claims here stay within the inspected abstract.

The work and edition history

The James Joyce Centre identifies Dubliners as fifteen stories published by Grant Richards in London in 1914. Our selected passage is from the final story, The Dead. It puts a shared social evening beside a memory that one partner cannot share in the same way.

Psychological reading

Gretta recalls Michael Furey after hearing a song. Gabriel’s questioning becomes tense as she describes a young man she knew in Galway and eventually tells him that he died. Her recollection disrupts the meaning Gabriel had given their present moment.

Why it earns inclusion

How much of another person’s past can you know? The episode connects the cue that brings a memory forward with the listener’s need to interpret it. Students can attend to the difference between Gretta’s remembering and Gabriel’s assumptions about what it means for him.

Academic pairing and claim scope

Conway and Pleydell-Pearce’s self-memory model links constructed personal memories with knowledge and current goals. It offers an interpretive vocabulary for this encounter, not an experimental explanation of Gretta or Gabriel. The paper’s abstract does not analyze Joyce’s fiction.

Limits and controversies

The selected scene cannot stand for every story in the collection. Nor does a vivid literary memory demonstrate accuracy or a universal response to music. Distinguish the text’s portrayal of an encounter from claims that would require an empirical memory study.

Evidence behind the claims

  • Gretta recalls Michael Furey after hearing a song. Gabriel’s questioning becomes tense as she describes a young man she knew in Galway and eventually tells him that he died. Her recollection disrupts the meaning Gabriel had given their present moment.

    Interpretive literary readingSource: [1]Where: The Dead, hotel-room conversation about Michael Furey and The Lass of Aughrim

  • The theoretical model links constructed personal memories with autobiographical knowledge and current goals of the working self.

    Theoretical model or frameworkSource: [2]Where: Abstract of the linked articleChecked at abstract level

Authors and researchers

  • James Joyce. Author

In the Psy101 course

Educational reading guide only, not clinical diagnosis or treatment guidance. This course map indicates introductory curriculum relevance rather than clinical proof.See the full course map.

Sources and inspection

Of 3 cited sources, 1 had primary text or archive/edition records checked, 1 had an indexed abstract read, and 1 had bibliographic metadata checked (0 unverified). Literary works and memoirs are distinguished from empirical research studies.

  1. [2]
    Conway, M. A., & Pleydell-Pearce, C. W. (2000). The construction of autobiographical memories in the self-memory system. Psychological Review, 107(2), 261–288. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.107.2.261Consulted sourceJournal article. Paired academic research.Indexed abstract readIndexed abstract read; not a full-paper inspection.
  2. [3]
    James Joyce Centre. (n.d.). Work: Dubliners (1914). https://jamesjoyce.ie/work/Reference work. Historical or biographical context.Bibliographic metadata or reference record checkedThe Dubliners entry identifies fifteen stories, Grant Richards, London and publication in 1914.
  3. [1]
    Joyce, James, & 1882-1941. (n.d.). Dubliners. Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2814/pg2814-images.htmlPrimary literary or historical text. Work, edition, or catalog record.Primary text or passage readSelected passages in the linked text were read; this does not claim a whole-book reading. The Dead, hotel-room conversation about Michael Furey and The Lass of Aughrim Digital reading edition; its date is not asserted to be the original publication date.