In the Irish Catholic Society portrayed by James Joyce in Dubliners, the characters live in a world guided by "respectability", yet some are driven by the urge to escape. Joyce illustrates the reputable populace as false and undesirable, and depicts his protagonists as the few who recognize and attempt to seize opposing views. Nevertheless, in his somewhat pessimistic approach, Joyce concludes each tale with an inevitable resort to the world the characters had wished to …showed first 75 words of 1222 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1222 total…have concrete endings, leaving the reader to suppose the future, "The Dead" has a definitive ending. The internal references to each of the other stories serve as a conclusion to the entire book. Gabriel Conroy's continuously upset attempts at escape from the Irish Catholic Society's "respectability" perhaps mirror all of the other characters throughout the collection, as (like it or not) "respectability" remains the winner in its clash with the dream of escape and freedom.