living people's lives, and observes that everyone he knows, himself included, will one day only be a memory. He finds in this fact a profound affirmation of life. Gabriel stands at the window, watching the snow fall; and the narrative expands past him, edging into the surreal, and encompassing the entirety of Ireland. As the story ends, we are told that "His soul swooned slowly, as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe, and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead". Critique and analysis T. S. Eliot called "The Dead" one of the greatest short stories ever written. Joyce biographer and critic Richard Ellmann wrote: "In its lyrical, melancholy acceptance of all that life and death offer, 'The Dead' is a linchpin in Joyce's work." Cornell University Joyce scholar Daniel R. Schwarz described it as "that magnificent short novel of tenderness and passion but also of disappointed love and frustrated personal and career expectations". On the centennial of the release of Dubliners, Dan Barry of The New York Times called "The Dead" "just about the finest short story in the English language". This story offers a critique of a society that has been gripped by a deadening paralysis of the spirit, while also offering a juxtaposed, memento mori vision of the enlivening effect that may be found when the living contemplate the lives of those who have died. It has been suggested that the fictional character Gretta Conroy was inspired by Nora Barnacle, and that the fictional Michael Furey may have been partly inspired by Nora’s memories of her own romantic relationships with two friends, Michael (Sonny) Bodkin and Michael Feeney, who both died in their teens. Adaptations "The Dead" was adapted as a one-act play of the same name by Hugh Leonard in 1967. Joyce Carol Oates's 1973 story, "The Dead", makes many allusions to Joyce's story. In 1987, it was adapted into the film The Dead directed by John Huston, starring Anjelica Huston as Gretta Conroy and Donal McCann as Gabriel Conroy. In 1990, the story was used as the core narrative for season 4, episode 10 of Thirtysomething titled "Happy New Year". It is referenced in the Father Ted episode "Grant Unto Him Eternal Rest", when Ted quotes from the end of the story on the night before Father Jack's funeral, as it begins to snow.