James Joyce's story, “The Dead,” is read in the tension between sameness, circularity, restraint, deadness as against possibilities for change, vitality, passion, and loving intimacy. The author plays two different readings of “The Dead” against each other to generate such tension in life and death struggles. Epiphanies are seen as beckoning us with the possibilities for radical transformation—an impossible illusion—but sufficient to tempt us to struggle against detachment, isolation, and restraint toward moments, of variable length, of intimate connectedness with ourselves and with others.