Summary:
The story ‘Eveline’ by James Joyce is about a young Irish woman who is of nineteen years of age. The story is narrated in the third person by an anonymous narrator. In the story, Eveline plans to leave her abusive father and poverty-stricken existence in Ireland, and seek out a new, better life for herself and her secret lover Frank (a sailor). She wants to start her new journey of a better life with Frank and wanted to shift to Buenos Aires, Argentina.
In this story, James Joyce depicted a realistic version of Dublin at his time. He highlights the theme of memory, responsibility, decisions, conflict, escape, guilt, paralysis and letting go (or rather the inability to let go). The story exhibits the contemporary Irish people’s inability to move. They fear starting a fresh new life. The writer captures Dubliners’ longing for the past. They fail to move ahead because of their past life in Dublin. The situation is the same with Eveline.
The protagonist, Eveline is a young woman living in Dublin, Ireland. She desperately misses her old life and spends most of her time remembering it. When the story opens, the girl sits at her sitting-room window, watching the world go by. All she can smell is dust, and it makes her feel tired.
Eveline is the responsible key person in her family after her mother’s death. She is responsible for the day-to-day running of the household. Her father is a drunkard. He drinks a lot. He rarely shares his money to run his family. She has two brothers: Harry and Ernest. Harry is always busy with his business trips. Her other brother Ernest has died.
Eveline remembers what the street looked like before builders filled it with houses. She loved playing in the field with her friends. Everyone on the street knew each other. It was a lovely place to grow up. The only problem was Eveline’s father. He was a temperamental man who didn’t like her playing outside so much. He wanted her at home where he could keep an eye on her.
Eveline suggests that her mother kept her father’s temper in check. Now, her mother is dead. Some of her old friends moved away. Others died through illness and hunger. Eveline resents how everyone’s moved on, and she’s stuck at home, remembering. It feels like the world turns without her, and she doesn’t know what to do about it.
Finally, Eveline decides that it’s time to leave home. She knows that she might never return. To cheer herself up, she obsessively dusts all the furniture. She wants to preserve this moment forever, because she knows that, even if she does come home again, everything will look different.
Eveline and Frank book onto a ship leaving for Argentina. But as she is just about to board the ship, Eveline suffers a failure of resolve, and cannot go through with it. She wordlessly turns around and goes home, leaving Frank to board the ship alone. There is no sense that Eveline has the courage or strength to begin a new life. Despite the opportunity to start afresh, new life with Frank, Eveline is stuck in the past unable to move forward. Her fear of a new beginning and her perceived responsibility to her younger siblings and father results in her staying in Dublin. Eveline ultimately decided to return home to her father.
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