Main Themes in Eveline
Main Themes in Eveline
Main Themes in Eveline
Summary:
Eveline sits at the window, watching the avenue. She
thinks of her family, and the neighbors. Years ago, the
children on the avenue used to play on a field where now
stand many houses. She and her siblings are now grown
up, and her mother is dead. Eveline is nineteen years old,
and she is planning to leave Ireland forever. She works
very hard, at a store and also at home, where she cares
for her old father. She won't miss her job in the store. She
has mixed feelings about her father. He can be cruel, and
though he doesn't beat her, as he did to her brothers, he
often threatens her with violence. With her brothers gone
(Ernest is dead and Harry is often away on business)
there is no one to protect her. She takes care of two
young siblings and gives over her whole salary for the
family, but her father is always accusing her of wasting
money and being foolish.
Analysis:
Yet again, this story focuses on the theme of escape.
Eveline has been given a chance. Yet in the end, the girl
finds herself incapable of going.
Certainly, she has every reason to leave. The portrait we
have of her family life is less than heart-warming. We see
that she has taken on an incredible part of the burden in
keeping the family together, as her mother did before her.
Her father, despite the points he wins for not beating her,
is a domineering violent and unfair man, who makes his
daughter work and then keeps her wages. Rather than
appreciate her sacrifices, he ridicules her. Unpleasant
characters in Joyce's works often criticize the Irishman
who leaves Ireland, the most common sentiment being
that these expatriates are ungrateful children of their
country. Joyce, himself an expatriate, turns this insult
around in "Eveline": we see not an ungrateful child, but an
ungrateful parent. Eveline's stifling family life becomes a
metaphor for the trap that is Ireland.
Her mother provides the chilling example of what it means
to be a grateful child, and to do what is expected: we
learn that she lived a life "of commonplace sacrifices
closing in final craziness". At the end of her life she is true
Irish, babbling in Ireland's native language (which
nationalists had been trying to revitalize). However, the
phrase she utters repeatedly is probably nonsense; The
meaninglessness of the phrase suggests, metaphorically,
that the sacrifices have also been meaningless. Eveline's
mother(She died years ago, but her memory is still vivid for
Eveline. She lived a life of small sacrifices, and died a babbling
madwoman. ) has earned nothing but madness.
The stages-of-life structure continues. Eveline is adult, a
young woman old enough to get married. Joyce gives us
in detail the terrible poverty and pressure of her situation.
The weight of poverty and family responsibilities bear
down on this young woman heavily; her financial situation
is terrible. She is trapped in an ugly situation, responsible
for her siblings and the aging father who abuses her.
3
SYMBOLISM IN EVELINE
In James Joyce's "Eveline," a young woman faces the
difficult choice of taking a risk or remaining in safety.
Eveline must choose between following her heart and
impulsively following a man she barely knows or
remaining with her family in a relatively uneventful and
predictable life. Joyce uses several certain concepts,
actions, and images such as dusting, names, and Joyce's
past to symbolize the true nature of the short story.
Even the act of cleaning a house by dusting the many
objects within emphasizes Eveline's weariness with her
current situation. However, the same act also elaborates
on the comfort and familiarity she feels with such aspects
of her life. Eveline reminisces about the objects in the
house and how she interacted with these objects through
5
Setting
.......The story begins on an evening in a residential
section of Dublin, around 1900. It ends the same evening
at a dock where a night-boat (ferry) awaits passengers
bound for a port (probably Liverpool, England) where
oceangoing vessels embark for foreign places.
Point of View
.......Joyce tells the story in third-person point of view. In
the first paragraph, the narrator reports from a distance,
as if he is sitting across the room from Eveline. In the
second paragraph, the narrator enters the mind of Eveline
and reports the rest of the story from there, revealing the
thoughts of the title character as she considers whether to
remain home or go to Argentina to marry. She reviews the
events of her life, comparing the quality of her life in
Dublin over the years with the quality of life she believes
she would have in Buenos Aires.
Writing and Plot Structure
.......Most of the writing imitates the way the title
character would speak if she verbalized her thoughts. The
language is straightforward and easy to understand,
although not necessarily easy to interpret, and Joyce
9
10
Plot Summary
.
.......Eveline Hill looks out the window of her father's
Dublin home, reminiscing about her childhood days. She
and her brothers and sisters used to play in a field nearby
with neighborhood children from the Devine, Waters, and
Dunn families. Whenever her father came looking for
them with his blackthorn stick, Little Keough, a crippled
neighbor boy, would warn her and her siblings.
.......Now everything is changed. Her mother and her
brother Ernest are dead. The rest of the Hill children are
young adults. Houses now occupy the field where the
children played, Tizzie Dunn has died, and the Waters
family has moved back to England. The Smith home looks
the same, though, with its familiar furnishings. The old
yellow photo of a priest still hangs above the harmonium.
The priest and her father had been friends at school, and
her father shows the photo to visitors, saying, He is in
Melbourne now.
.......Eveline herself is about to leave her childhood home
and her job at a retail store, where Miss Gavin is always
there to order her around: "Miss Hill, don't you see these
ladies are waiting?"
.......In her new home in a far-off land, she will be a
married woman who is treated with respect. Her father
will not be there to threaten her or treat her the way he
did her mother. Though she is going on twenty, she still
fears him. When she was very young, he did not treat her
as badly as he treated Ernest and Harry. Lately, though,
he has been threatening her. Harry usually is not there to
take her side, for he spends a lot of time out in the
country on his church-decorating business.
.......The Saturday-night arguments with her father over
money are a trial. She always gives him all of her pay, and
Harry gives him what he can. But try getting money back
from him. He always tells Eveline she is a spendthrift and
that he will not give her any of his hard-earned money.
After a time, he yields. But he expects her to buy Sunday
dinner.
.......In addition to her job, she has to keep house and
tend to the two little children in the household, making
sure they get their meals and get to school on time.
11
12
Themes
Inertia
.......Like Ireland itself in the last years of the nineteenth century
and the early years of the twentieth century, Eveline struggles to
escape oppression. Her father has ruled her life for as long as she
can remember, just as England has for so long ruled directly or
indirectly the life of Ireland. But independence for Eveline and
Ireland requires bold action. Too often, however, every step
forward also produces another step backward. Eveline takes a
step, then retreats and ends up as she was before. But there is a
glimmer of hope: Eveline has said no to a man in a maledominated society. But when she returns home, will she have the
courage to say no to her father when he makes unreasonable
demands? Will she have the courage to begin taking back her life?
Or will she continue to languish amid the smell of dusty cretonne
and her mother's Gaelic gibberish ringing in her ears?
Environmental Attachment
.......Eveline's attachment to her environment strongly influences
her decision to remain in Ireland, as the following passages
suggest.
Paragraph 3: Perhaps she would never see again those familiar
objects from which she had never dreamed of being divided.
Paragraph 5: In her home anyway she had shelter and food; she
had those whom she had known all her life about her.
Paragraph 9: It was hard worka hard lifebut now that she was
about to leave it she did not find it a wholly undesirable life.
Paragraph 13: Her father was becoming old lately, she noticed; he
would miss her. Sometimes he could be very nice. Not long before,
when she had been laid up for a day, he had read her out a ghost
story and made toast for her at the fire. Another day, when their
mother was alive, they had all gone for a picnic to the Hill of
Howth. She remembered her father putting on her mothers bonnet
to make the children laugh.
13
Guilt
.......Guilt may have been another factor in Eveline's decision to
remain in Ireland. After all, she had promised her mother that she
would keep the home together as long as she could. Running
away to Argentina would break that promise. And what about the
two young children she has been caring for? And what about her
father, who was becoming old lately [and] would miss her?
Doubt
.......The narrator hints that Eveline harbors doubts about her
relationship with Frank. She considers his good qualitieshis
kindness, his manliness, his love of musicbut never once does
she note that he loves her. The closest she comes is this thought
in paragraph 18: She must escape! Frank would save her. He
would give her life, perhaps love, too. (The key word here is
perhaps.) Nor does Eveline ever note that she loves Frank. When
the night-boat is about to embark, she prays to God to show her
what was her duty. Here, duty suggests that she believes her life
with Frank would be like her mother's life with her fatheror no
better than Eveline's life with her father. It may be that her doubts
about her relationship with Frank, combined with her attachment to
her environment and her feelings of guilt, overcome her desire to
escape.
.......Eveline may also have been aware that Buenos Aires had a
reputation as a place where young women were often ensnared in
a life of prostitution. Was it possible that Frank was luring her into
such a life?
15
16
One cannot begin a new life unless one leaves behind the
old, and "the seas" of rebirth are too much for her. Unable
to make that leap of faith, she remains behind, "passive,
like a helpless animal" .
Symbolism:
1. Dust: nothing changes in the house (paralysis)
2.Broken harmonium: lack of harmony in Eveline life in
contrast to the happiness of her childhood
3.Portholes: light indicates that, that of leaving Ireland is
the right direction to follow (in contrast to the Fading light
of Eveline's room)4. The black boat-a monster that
Eveline believes will kill her
Main themes:
-Escape: she has every reason to leave.
1. She has to work hard and is accused of squandering
money
2. Her father abuse to her
3. Nobody protects her
4. Perspective of living the same life as her mother's She
has been given a chance
-Paralysis: cause the feature of her escape continuous
shift from living and not living . Eveline is a passive
character
-Feature: frank is considered by Eveline as a father more
than as an object of desire
18