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The 15 stories the book is made up of were all written by 1905, except for the Dead, written in 1907. The stories are arranged into 4 groups each of which represents one stage in file: childhood, adolescence, maturity, public life, plus an epilogue "The Dead".

The stories narrated lack obvious actions, in fact they mainly focus on human situations and moments of sudden insight, which were one of the characteristics of Joyce's art. He called these moments of insights "epiphanies". The original meaning of the word Epiphany is the showing of the Christ child to the Magi. There is an epiphany when some details or moments buried for years in the character's memory come to the surface and lead the characters to a sudden self-realisation about themselves or the reality surrounding them. What holds all the stories together is the presence of the same themes, symbols and narrative techniques:

A persuasive theme: paralysis

Joyce wanted to portray the paralysis both physical and moral of Dublin. All the Dubliners described in the book are spiritually weak, unable to act, slaves as they are, of familiar, moral, cultural, religious and political life.

Narrative technique and language

Joyce rejects the use of the omniscient narrator and the single point of view: each story is told from the perspective of a character. That is way the linguistic register is varied since the language used in all the stories suits the age, the social class and the role of the characters.

The Dead

She was fast asleep

The passage is a combination of realism and symbolism. Everything is described in detail (Gretta, sleeping, the hotel room), but also overloaded with symbols. The personal names are symbols, too. Gabriel, according to the Bible, is both the prince of fire and the angel of death. As for Michael, he is an angel too, and he will live in Gretta's memory forever, eclipsing the weak presence of her husband. The most effective antithesis is the widespread pattern of life and death. Throughout the story the living are show as spiritually dead and though Michael is physicallu dead, he is alive in Gretta's memory. It is only though the final image of the falling snow that the symbolic reconcilation of life and death accurs. The snow may be both a symbol of death because it covers both the dead and living, and, the same time, the symbol of purification and life, since it clears the world of all negative images. The passage is written alternating descriptive mode and narrative mode. The final sequence of the Dead is filtered through Gabriel's point of view with his thoughts wondering between past and present.