Eveline is a story from Dubliners by James
Joyce.
The story
A young woman of about nineteen years of age sits by her window, waiting to leave home. She muses on the aspects of her life
that are driving her away, while "in her nostrils was the smell of dusty cretonne". Her mother
has died as has her older brother Ernest. Her remaining brother, Harry is on the road "in the church decorating business". She
fears that her father will beat her as he used to beat her brothers, and she has little loyalty for her sales job. She has fallen
for a sailor named Frank who promises to take her with him to Buenos Aires (spelled Buenos
Ayres). Before leaving to meet Frank, she hears an organ-grinder outside, which reminds her of a melody that played on an organ
on the day her mother died and the promise she made to her mother to look after the home. At the dock where she and Frank are
ready to embark on a ship together, Eveline is deeply conflicted and makes the painful decision to not leave with him.
Nonetheless, her face registers no emotion at all.
Like other tales in Dubliners, such as "Araby", "Eveline" features a circular journey, where a character decides to go
back where their journey began, and where the result of their journey is disappointment and reluctance to travel.
Characters
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Eveline
By choosing the name Eveline, the author draws a line between the main character, who, in this story, is more of a victim than
a sinner, as opposed to the bible, where Eve actually commits the original sin. Eveline is caught in everything but a Garden of
Eden: She is the one who has to do all the work while her father probably spends the money she earns on alcohol and complains a
lot. Still, she carries on, for her dead mother’s sake. By the time an opportunity to leave everything behind and start a new
life has come, she is trapped too firmly in this net of sense of guilt and bad conscience to take the chance and escape.
Frank
As his name may imply and from Eveline's perspective, Frank is an honest, manly and open-hearted person who is interested in
music and idealized by Eveline because he was the first person to take her out of her everyday life and show her something new
and exciting. This is, probably, why she likes him too. She seems to appreciate more what he stands for and impersonates -
Freedom, adventure, and what is yet to be explored – than the man himself.
The father
Eveline’s father is a very bitter person, probably alcoholic too, who has problems expressing his feelings. He does not know
how to say what he really means and thinks. He “swallows” everything and then loses his temper over ridiculously nonrelevant
things. This is why Eveline sometimes fears him – now that there are no brothers left he could take his own depressions out on,
he may go for her. Deep inside he knows that he is acting irrationally and being unjust, but does not know how to do better and
change without openly confessing to the world and himself that he is wrong.
Author style
James Joyce uses a lot of figurative language to make his texts more appealing and to create certain multi-sensual sceneries
as a setting for his story. He heavily makes use of the onomatopoetic concept and picturesque descriptions to strengthen this
effect and drag the reader into his story as an observer. To connect certain trains of thought he applies associations and
repetition of key words and terms.
Trivia
"Eveline" inspired a song by the same name by the band Nickel Creek.
The story mentions the operetta The Bohemian Girl.
External links
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