Considered as one of the greatest short stories in the Western Canon, James Joyce's complex narrative "The Dead", explores the intricate issues of identity and power through the lens of language, patriarchy, and imperialism. These issues are directly tied to the longstanding political turmoil of his native Ireland and the social questions of his day. Joyce's story reveals that we often achieve what we tried to avoid by pretending to be what we are not. At 15,672 words The Dead is often considered a novella and the best of Joyce's shorter works. James Joyce (1882–1941) was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century. Joyce is best known for Ulysses (1922), a landmark work in which the episodes of Homer's Odyssey are paralleled in an array of contrasting literary styles, perhaps most prominent among these the stream of consciousness technique he perfected. Other major works are the short-story collection Dubliners (1914), and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Finnegans Wake (1939). His complete oeuvre also includes three books of poetry, a play, occasional journalism, and his published letters.