Snow of "The Dead"

I decided to write about snow, which seems like a symbol, of "The Dead" this week. In this story, Gabriel keeps mentioning the snow, although we do not know why. I did a research for this symbolic word, and I found that snow "The dead and the living aren't so far apart" (shmoop.com). 

After I read "The Dead," I thought the snow just makes Gabriel ashamed of him because snow itself is so clean while he is not. I think that makes sense, but the research helped me to interpret the snow in other way. 

So let me analyze the sentence, "The dead and the living aren't so far apart." When the snow is falling from the sky, it is alive. It keeps moving and has a certain type of form that we can touch and feel. But as soon as it falls on the ground, it melts and is gone, which means it is not alive anymore. It is dead. So the snow is alive and dead at the same time, which tells Gabriel that life and death is not that different.

Although Gabriel is alive, his life is not meaningful. He just cares his reputation, not being interested in people around him, including his wife, Gretta. So he has not lived his life to the full. On the contrary, we can say that Gretta's dead lover, Michael, lived his life to the full since he really  pursued what he really wanted in his life when he was dying.

Even though he is dead, he is still alive in Gretta's memory. So the snow is telling Gabriel that although he is alive now, people can say he is not, since he wasted his life for meaningless things. So this might be why snow is often mentioned in this story, telling Gabriel the most important lesson of life.

This is what I newly interpreted the snow, although I like my first interpretation, as well.