Explain the symbolism of snow in James Joyce’s short story „The Dead“.

Answer 1

The snow essentially symbolizes mortality. It is white, it is cold; winter is the season of death. Gabriel is shocked and dismayed to hear the story of Michael Furey, the boy who died for his wife Gretta when she was young. At the end of the story Gabriel watches the snow fall outside, highly conscious of death and feeling bitter toward the emptiness of his own life, which he sees as a living death.

"Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age." Gabriel reflects that it is better to die in a youthful fit of passion than to live a long, dull, empty life. Passion usually connotes "heat" and "fire," which contrasts with the snow falling over the winter landscape, where things "fade and wither." Artists commonly use the seasons to parallel the stages of an individual's life: spring can represent childhood and adolescence, summer early adulthood, autumn maturity, and winter old age and death.