The failure to create wholeness from Gnomon in The DeadThere is no doubt in anyone's mind that Gabriel's speech in “The Dead” is a failure. It's harder to understand exactly what he was trying to accomplish. The almost archaic style contradicts the light content, and we are left with a disjointed speech that seems to achieve nothing. Reading the speech, one cannot help but be struck by its wonderfully strange and seemingly antiquated phraseology: [Let us] still cherish in our hearts the memory of these dead. . .whose fame the world will not willingly let die.[To]courageously continue our work among the living.We are welcomed here as friends. . . (202-203) "Those who are dead", "working among the living", "we are welcomed here as friends" - this is not exactly the tone one would expect from an informal speech after a dinner at the middle of a party. The question is: "Where can we expect to hear this kind of speech?" » The answer is simple: during a funeral, of course. Not just any kind of funeral, though. One in particular comes to mind: we find ourselves on the great battlefield of this war. We have come together to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting place for those who gave their lives here so that this nation might live. . . The world will remember only a little and for a long time what we say to it, but it will never be able to forget what they did here. Rather, it is up to us, the living, to devote ourselves here to the unfinished work.. . (261) In his sentiments and even in his diction, it is astonishing how closely Gabriel's speech resembles Licoln's Gettysburg Address. Now, before you throw this document away in disgust, let me clarify that I will not suggest that Joyce attempted to transcribe the Gettysburg Address to the people of Dublin. I think, however, that both speeches come from a certain tradition of speaking, the funeral oration or epitaphioi; and understanding how Gabriel's speech follows or deviates from the tradition he imitates helps us understand the reasons and consequences of his failure. Lincoln's funeral oration is the only English example of a specifically Athenian phenomenon. In classical Athens, it was customary for an elected official to give a speech at the funerals of soldiers who had lost their lives during the previous year..