Gabriel and Gretta arrive late to the Morkan sisters' annual party.

Gabriel gives Lily an awkward tip after embarrassing her with questions about her love life.

Freddy Malins arrives drunk, causing concern among the hosts.

Mary Jane plays a piano piece for the gathered guests.

Gabriel dances with Miss Ivors, who accuses him of being a "West Briton" for writing for a conservative newspaper.

Miss Ivors makes her excuses and leaves the party abruptly and early.

Julia sings for the guests, entertaining them before dinner is served.

Gabriel sits at the head of the dinner table and carves the goose.

Gabriel stands nervously and delivers a speech praising the Morkan sisters' warmth and hospitality.

The guests raise their glasses in a toast to Kate, Julia, and Mary Jane.

Bartell D'Arcy sings a folk song in the drawing room as the party draws to a close.

Gabriel and Gretta take a taxi from the party to their hotel in Dublin.

Gretta breaks down in tears in the hotel room, admitting she cannot stop thinking about the song she heard.

Gretta reveals that a young man from Galway named Michael Furey, now dead, once sang that same song to her.

Gabriel lies awake in the dark hotel room, watching snow fall silently on Dublin below.

The story follows Gabriel Conroy attending the annual Morkan sisters' party with his wife Gretta, arriving late and immediately stumbling through an awkward exchange with the servant Lily. At the party, Gabriel endures a tense dance with the nationalist Miss Ivors before sitting at the head of the dinner table to deliver a speech about Irish hospitality. As the evening winds down, Gabriel is struck by the sight of Gretta standing transfixed by a song being performed in the drawing room. When they return to their hotel room, Gretta breaks down in tears and confesses that the song reminded her of a young man from Galway named Michael Furey, who is now dead. Unable to sleep, Gabriel lies awake watching snow fall outside the window, his understanding of himself and his marriage forever altered by his wife's revelation.

The central events of Gabriel Conroy's evening, from arrival to revelation.

Kate and Julia Morkan eagerly await the arrival of their nephew Gabriel and his wife Gretta.

Gabriel's aunts tease him about the galoshes he is wearing to the party.

Gabriel and Gretta inform the aunts they have booked a hotel room rather than travel home that night.

Mr. Browne attempts to dance with the young women at the party, claiming to be "the man for the ladies."

Gabriel asks Mr. Browne to help sober up the drunken Freddy Malins before he causes a scene.

Gabriel listens to Mary Jane's piano performance and thinks about his mother's opposition to his marriage.

Gabriel retreats to a corner of the room, unable to shake off Miss Ivors's words about his lack of patriotism.

Gabriel gazes through the window at falling snow and finds the quiet outside more pleasant than the busy party.

Gabriel worries that his awkwardness during the dance was the reason Miss Ivors left the party so early.

The dinner guests argue over their favorite opera singers from decades past, lamenting the decline of great performers.

The guests discuss monks who sleep in coffins to remind themselves of their mortality.

Gabriel tells the story of his grandfather's horse, which kept walking in circles around a Dublin statue after leaving the mill.

Gabriel's tender memories of his early romantic life with Gretta fill his thoughts as they wait to depart the party.

Gabriel tells the hotel porter to take away the candle as he and Gretta enter their dark room.

Gretta explains that Michael Furey stood outside her window in the cold while he was already sick with illness.

Beneath the warmth of the festive party, a series of smaller moments reveals the complexity of the characters gathered at the Morkan house. Gabriel arrives to aunts who tease him fondly about his galoshes, while the drunken Freddy Malins requires careful managing and Mr. Browne holds boisterous court with the younger women. As the evening continues, Gabriel finds himself drawn to the window, struck by how much more pleasant the quiet, snow-covered world outside seems compared to the noisy party within. Over dinner, the guests trade nostalgic opinions about great opera singers of the past, revealing how collectively they dwell on what is gone rather than what is present. When Gabriel and Gretta depart, his mind fills with tender romantic memories of their early life together, only for those feelings to collapse in the hotel room when Gretta confesses a long-hidden grief rooted in a young man who once braved the cold to sing to her.

The telling details and undercurrents that shape Gabriel's evening at the party.

Gabriel enters the Morkan house anxious that his speech's literary references will go over the audience's heads.

Gabriel checks on Freddy Malins to make sure he is sober enough not to cause a scene at the party.

Miss Ivors invites Gabriel to join a summer Irish-speaking excursion to the Aran Isles to prove his Irish identity.

Gabriel refuses Miss Ivors's invitation and declares that "Irish is not my language."

Gabriel tells Miss Ivors that he is "sick" of Ireland when she challenges his lack of patriotism.

Gabriel's speech urges the guests not to waste their lives dwelling on the past or the dead.

Gabriel looks up from the departing guests and sees Gretta standing perfectly still on the stairs, listening to a distant song.

Gabriel watches Gretta walk into the cold night air and feels a sudden, intense longing surge through him.

In the hotel room, Gabriel feels a surge of desire for Gretta but she remains emotionally distant and unreachable.

Gabriel tries to draw Gretta into an embrace; she pulls away from him and begins to cry.

Gretta tells Gabriel that she and Michael Furey had a romantic connection when she was a young girl in Galway.

Gretta reveals that Michael died shortly after braving the cold to see her, and she blames herself for his death.

Gabriel feels ashamed of his lustful thoughts upon learning about Gretta's hidden grief over Michael Furey.

Gretta, exhausted by her confession, cries herself to sleep on the hotel bed.

Gabriel imagines snow falling indiscriminately across all of Ireland, covering the graves of the dead and the streets of the living alike.

From the moment Gabriel enters the party anxious about his speech, a series of confrontations quietly erodes his self-assurance. His refusal to engage with Miss Ivors's nationalist challenge exposes the insularity at the heart of his character, while his own speech's call to celebrate the living over the dead carries a dramatic irony he does not yet recognise. The decisive turning point comes when Gabriel sees Gretta standing transfixed on the stairs, sensing something unknowable in her that he cannot name or claim. His attempt to reach her romantically in the hotel room ends in rejection and tears, and Gretta's confession about Michael Furey shatters Gabriel's belief that he truly knew his wife. The story closes with Gabriel's cathartic realisation that the living and the dead are bound together, his mind expanding far beyond himself as the snow falls impartially on all of Ireland.

The key decisions and discoveries that transform Gabriel's understanding of himself and the world.