Gabriel
... Micahel Furey was romantic in ways that Gabriel was not. ... Gabriel now realizes that you can learn from the past and not to just go blindly on towards the future. ... Gabriel Conroy - The main character in "The Dead" and the most important character in Dubliners. Gabriel is Grettas husband, a mildly successful writer and teacher. After the jovial Christmas party at his aunts house, Gabriel feels extremely drawn to Gretta; when he learns that she has been thinking of a young man, Michael Furey with whom she used to be in love, he experiences an agonizing moment of shame followed by the realization that no human being can ever truly know another. ... Gabriel realizes this sad fact, and so heals himself in this epiphany—death comes for all, and so we must treasure that which we have and those we hold close, before the snow, white like death, covers us all, "the living and the dead." Her recounting of this tragic love to Gabriel brings him to an epiphany: he learns the difference between mere existence and living In the writings of James Joyce an epiphany is that moment of realization — a psychological and spiritual breakthrough which redefines the characters conception of the universe.