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Karina Alvarez
Professor Malhotra
English 220: Fall 2016
20 December 2016
Gabriel Conroy is a Psychopath
James Joyce has a unique way of articulating a story, especially in the short story collection
Dubliners because the stories can be interpreted in many different ways without losing their main
message. Joyce’s short story “The Dead” is a great example to view this. Depending on the person, the
story is open to many interpretations, for example some claim that Lily could possibly be pregnant or
that Gabriel Conroy is a sympathetic character towards others. One could also interpret Gabriel as
possibly being a psychopath given his actions towards others and his internal thoughts throughout the
feast.
The term “psychopath” is tossed around so lightly- mostly because of big Hollywood films using
this concept as a basis for a psychological thriller- that it can be quite difficult to properly identify a
person as a psychopath. There is also a negative stigmatization about the word makes most people
believe that psychopaths are unstable and dysfunctional members in our society that have a tendency to
be criminals and/or display criminal behavior but that is not the case. Cynthia Mathieu and Paul
Babiak’s article expresses this lack of criminal persona and defines a psychopathic personality as being
“a constellation of personality traits that consists of a cluster of interpersonal, affective, lifestyle and
antisocial traits and behaviours” (272); these traits are explained in depth later on. Psychopaths can be
just like everyone else and may be even more difficult to pigeonhole because their behavior is not
overtly obvious to be that of a psychopath. Taking James Joyce’s lead male character Gabriel Conroy in
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his short story “The Dead,” one could evaluate Gabriel Conroy as being a psychopath based on his
distinct behavioral traits. The instances where Gabriel interacts with women, even just how he talks
about them, give a stable foundation for attributing these psychopathic traits to his behavior.
What needs to be established first is that a “psychopath” is a person that can be said to suffer
from antisocial personality disorder. According to the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), “antisocial personality disorder is a pattern of disregard for, and
violation of, the rights of others” that possesses three or more of the specific traits attributed to it (645).
To keep a fluent consistency, psychopath will be used as a term to describe a person has at least three
specific behavioral traits correlating with the definition of antisocial personality disorder: a lack of
empathy/insensitivity, not wanting to take responsibility for his actions, manipulativeness, narcissism,
charisma/charm, a susceptibility to being bored easily, bullying, and a need for power/control.
To some, Gabriel being a psychopath seems to be a big stretch. However, according to the
statistical data gathered through sample studies in the DSM-5, at most 3.3% of people suffer from
antisocial personality disorder and, in regards to gender, there is a higher prevalence (more than 70%)
of men experiencing this disorder, especially in those that suffer from substance and alcohol abuse
(661). This is relevant because it is saying that 1 in every 30 individuals could most likely be
experiencing this disorder whether they know it or not; in addition, men have a higher chance of
experiencing this disorder and if they have an abuse problem the chances are even greater. So to
dismiss that Gabriel cannot possibly be a psychopath is not an assumption to be easily made. One must
look and assess the clues given by Mr. Conroy himself.
The specific traits that will be focused on in the case of Gabriel Conroy is his lack of
empathy/insensitivity, not wanting to take responsibility for his actions, charisma/charm, bullying
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tendencies, manipulativeness, and the need for power/control- having manipulation and need for power
go together. Gabriel Conroy displays these traits mostly during his interactions with the women around
him: Gretta and Lily specifically. Some interactions even reveal two aspects of Gabriel’s behavior in one
moment if one were to read it a certain way. When the reader is first introduced to Gabriel Conroy, one
of the first traits he demonstrates is the trait of being a bully. Right after the caretaker’s daughter asserts
that she and the others thought he would never arrive, Conroy exclaims that “but they forget that my
wife here takes three mortal hours to dress herself” (Joyce 120). Out of anything Conroy could have
said, he chooses to explain that it is not his fault but his wife’s fault that he and his wife are late because
she just takes forever to get dressed. Conroy’s belittlement of Gretta happening so quickly in our first
introduction of him signals to the reader that not only is this second nature behavior, but also it is
something that occurs constantly as Gretta remains silent at this moment. The bullying is an aspect rather
insignificant to the storyline but it is an included factor in what qualifies as a psychopath.
Gabriel displays even more traits with Lily not long after the belittlement of his wife. After
Gabriel tries to make conversation with Lily, he suggests that Lily should be getting married soon; to
which Lily is offended by his remark. In an attempt to avoid the conversation becoming more
uncomfortable, Gabriel tries to hand Lily some money;
“Then he took a coin rapidly from his pocket.
‘Oh Lily,’ he said, thrusting it into her hands, ‘it’s Christmas-time, isn’t it?
Just… here’s a little….’
He walked rapidly towards the door” (Joyce 121).
In this small yet significant interaction, Gabriel is revealing himself not wanting to own up to his actions,
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manipulative and also charming. Instead of working through what he said and how it offended Lily, he
decides to just bribe her off to end the interaction all together.
Even though Vincent Cheng takes a political view to evaluate the short story, he makes a point
to describe Gabriel as a “domestic tyrant” using his powers to oppress those around him (Empire and
Patriarchy, 348). This is shown well through Gabriel’s action of making Lily take the money shows how
easy it is for him to influence those around him when things have not gone his way or what he was
expecting. To top if off, Gabriel chalking his gracious, giving mood up to the holiday’s spirit and going
off singing and Lily seemingly forgetting what just happened can be attributed to his charm. This specific
claim can be backed up more with the fact that Gabriel’s aunts- along with Lily- were concerned that he
would not arrive, showing that he must be a well-respected and admired man by all. Even if he is
awkward with women one on one, what saves him is his charisma. Having Gabriel display not one but
three traits- charm, not taking responsibility for his actions, need for control- in an interaction that must
have lasted no more than five minutes should be considered a clear indicator that he is a psychopath
because he is displaying more than three traits of the antisocial personality disorder.
What has not been covered yet is the repetitiveness of his actions using these traits. Throughout
the entire short story, Gabriel continues to display the traits that correlate to that of a common
psychopath. There is a scene where his wife Gretta is standing by the steps listening to Mr. D’Arcy sing
And he for a moment doesn't even realize that that is his wife. While he watches her, Gabriel starts to
think about painting her stating “[if] he were a painter he would paint her in that attitude… Distant
Music he would call the picture if he were a painter” (143). At first glance one could view the sentiment
of painting one's wife as romantic; however, one can see Gabriel expressing the traits of manipulation
and need for power/control. In the article “ Validating the B-Scan Self”, the reader is given a chart that
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gives a clear understanding for the traits being mentioned here- one of those traits is manipulation
(Mathieu 276). Gabriel is expressing how he views his wife more as of an object than a human being
while mentioning that he wants her to be a painting suggests that he wants to be able to have complete
control of her and put her where he finds fit. David Rando’s- an Associate English Professor at Trinity
College- expresses an interesting point that can be related to Gabriel Conroy's character and based on
this interaction. Rando’s critical essay mentions that “psychopaths ‘do not see [their victims] as human
beings at all but merely as objects of the psychopath's own needs and intentions’" (Rando 586). Cheng
shares this view with Rando by stating that “the aesthetic objectification of women as art…, as object
rather than subject” (357). This observation establishes how a typical psychopath views a person and
gives way to interpret how such a person would treat those around them. To have Gabriel see his wife
and express how he sees her as something to paint and have under his control to do what he wants to it
gives the reader more information to conclude that he could possibly be a psychopath. Both of these
articles give more evidence to make that point; maintaining that Gabriel does possess psychopathic traits
that could qualify him to be a textbook psychopath.
Rando goes more into depth in Gabriel’s character, stating that he seems to “classify women” by
fitting them into categories; for example, “His aunts are ‘two ignorant old women’ (167); he treats
Gretta [described as “country cute”] and Molly Ivors [a person he works with but has different values
and beliefs] quite differently according to how he perceives their geographical origins, educations, and
occupations” (581). Gretta is quiet and rarely goes against Gabriel while Miss Ivors is outspoken and
independent; this plays out in how he interacts with them, showing that Gretta is much easier to control
and manipulate into behaving how he wants while Miss Ivors is someone that pushes at Gabriel’s
buttons and- after trying to divert from the conversation by “taking part in the dance with great energy”
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(Joyce 429) and seeing as he cannot control her- Gabriel chooses to just remove himself from the
situation all together. With Miss Ivors, Gabriel had no control over the situation which went against his
natural personality and caused him to revert to another aspect of his personality to make it seem in his
head that he had control over the situation- his charm. This charm trait falls under the interpersonal traits
which can equate to being insincere, according to Mathieu’s research (276). Gabriel shows this
insincerity briefly when it is stated that he energetically danced to “cover his agitation” caused by Miss
Ivors. One could also compare this failed interaction with Miss Ivors to Gabriel’s successful interaction
with Lily. One could see that with Lily, Gabriel was able to tip her off and feel achieved in his control
over the situation; as Cheng states “in other words, he buys her off by imposing his dominance in a
different field of mastery in which he can still hold sovereignty…” (352). [The interactions are viewed as
successful or not based on how well the interactions through Gabriel’s control over the situation and
diffusion of said situation using his charm].
It appears to be that the unveiling of Gabriel’s psychopathic traits occur mostly when he is
interacting with the women around him. Even though there are very limited interactions with other male
characters in the story, one could make a point to say that Gabriel is not a psychopath because he only
seems to express these traits and behaviors towards women and he is just an awkward person when it
comes to women. However, those contending for the argument that Gabriel is a psychopath could use
Rando’s claim of psychopaths viewing their “victims” as objects- victim being the key would (586).
Even though men can be victims, in this story those that are deemed victims are those that do not hold
as much authority or power, i.e. women - especially since this story is being written in a time period
where women are still seen being below men. This claim opens up the interpretation of the story more,
allowing the reader to catch these instances of psychopathic behaviors through the one-on-one
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interactions between Gabriel and the women around him. What could also be used to argue against
Gabriel just being an awkward person is the event where Gabriel is thinking about how the hotel porter
could easily dominate Greta by throwing his arm around her frail body (Joyce 147). Gabriel seems to be
projecting his thoughts and intentions of dominating his own wife on the porter and making him seem like
a bad person. This is another instance where Gabriel is showing how he sees his wife as an objectexpressed by Cheng and Rando- and how he wants to dominate her- connecting to the need of
power/control over other people also argued by Cheng.
In the final moments of the story, Gabriel Convoy has a surge of impulses about his wife that
may appear to be romantic and typical in a relationship between two consenting people but these
tendencies truly reveal and make the reader certain that Gabriel could be a slight psychopath. These
impulses first start with the need to be in control and dominating his wife as Gabriel is continuously
imagining overmastering his wife, he wanted to “run after her, catch her by her shoulders”, Gabriel also
wanted to “be alone with her” and continuously speaks about how he would soon have her alone in the
hotel room (145-6). Rando’s article mentions that these fantasies to “‘crush her body against his, to
overmaster her’ (189)—resembles the impulse toward date or mate rape” (586). The more one reads
into Gabriel’s character, the more one can note that Gabriel does give off a rapey vibe. However, this
vibe does not register right away to the reader because of the fact that Gabriel is seen as a
well-respected and charismatic person so his impulses could most likely be brushed off as being that of
a man who is just headstrong, focused and extremely “in love” with his wife.
These impulses then move onto another trait that could be considered an important aspect in
determining a psychopath- lack of empathy/insensitivity from the individual (Mathieu 276). Gretta at this
moment is having memories of an old lover, Michael Furey, when she was about seventeen that passed
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away. Gabriel takes in this information and immediately expresses his jealousy towards this old lover of
his now wife. Gabriel sees that his wife is feeling downcast because Mr. D’Arcy was singing The Lass
of Aughrim which is the song Michael use to sing to her. Even when Gretta was crying Gabriel decided
to turn away from her instead of console her and continue to “keep up his tone of cold interrogation”
(Joyce 150). Gabriel took longer than a regular person would to console their significant other, and it
was only until he released that it would be wrong to push her into continuing with his lustful and selfish
needs. The fact that Gabriel only feels the need to console his wife because pushing her to fulfill his
needs would be “vain” and not because his wife his deeply heartbroken shows that Gabriel is insensitive
to the emotions of those around him.
When first said, calling Gabriel a psychopath seems extremely farfetched. Being as the short
story has so much room for interpretation, there will most likely be those that argue Gabriel is just an
awkward person that does not know who to have an interaction with women. However, when one
looks into what makes a psychopath, what is required to be labeled a “psychopath” or just someone
who suffers from antisocial personality disorder, and the statistics of how common this disorder can be
among a select group of individuals, this idea should not be ruled out so easily. Through the multiple
interactions with the women around him, Gabriel’s display of at least three specific traits of a
psychopath- lack of empathy/insensitivity, not wanting to take responsibility for his actions,
charisma/charm, bullying tendencies, manipulativeness, and the need for power/control, along with the
fact that 1 in 30 individuals suffer from this disorder and there is a high prevalence rate among men,
Gabriel could most likely be a very mild case of a psychopath.
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Works Cited
American Psychiatric Association. DSM 5. American Psychiatric Association, 2013.
Cheng, Vincent. "Empire and Patriarchy in" The Dead"." Joyce Studies Annual 4 (1993): 341-62.
Joyce, James. ‘The Dead,’ in Dubliners. London: Dover Thrift Editions, 1991, pp.119-52.
Mathieu, Cynthia, and Paul Babiak. "Validating The B‐Scan Self: A Self‐Report Measure Of
Psychopathy In The Workplace." International Journal Of Selection And Assessment 24.3
(2016): 272-284. PsycINFO. Web. 20 Dec. 2016.
Rando, David P. "David Foster Wallace and lovelessness." Twentieth Century Literature 59.4 (2013):
575+. Academic OneFile. Web. 20 Dec. 2016.