SOURCE: Pilipp, Frank. “Narrative Devices and Aesthetic Perception in Joyce's and Huston's ‘The Dead.’” Literature/Film Quarterly 21, no. 1 (January 1993): 61-8.

In the following essay, Pilipp compares narrative techniques in Joyce's short story “The Dead” and John Huston's 1987 film adaptation of the work.

This study analyzes the capacity of narrative devices to depict and elicit processes of aesthetic perception in both the text and the film¹ of James Joyce's novella “The Dead.” The objective is to determine the artistic means through which each medium projects the conflict. The realization of the aesthetic qualities of an object of art is accomplished through acts of perception. Only when we understand the artistic devices of a work of art can it be experienced as an aesthetic entity. Each work of art projects a purely intentional state of affairs, and it is up to the reader, viewer, or listener to concretize it. Yet...