Eveline (Style)

Style

Epiphany

One of Joyce's stylistic trademarks is the use of a character's brief realization of truth and clarity, usually signaling a new direction and understanding of the world. Eveline experiences an "epiphany" after she remembers her mother's dying words "Derevaun Seraun" and makes the ecstatic resolution to escape to a new life, although she is unable to follow a new course when the time comes.

The word "epiphany" comes from the Greek for "manifestation," usually of divine power, and Joyce was very cognizant both of this root and the connotation of the January-sixth Christian festival of the Epiphany, which commemorates Jesus' baptism, the visit of the Wise Men, and the miracle at Cana. Each of these events is, for Christians, an instance of a manifestation of God's power, and the festival is second only to Easter in theological importance. In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Stephen's epiphanies are often overtly religious, and although Joyce expands the idea into other contexts, it carries Christian undertones throughout his works.

Because of this religious context, and because Eveline is seeking spiritual regeneration in her journey, the epiphany in the story can be read as a moment of divine clarity. Phrases like "sudden impulse" and "he would save her" clue the reader into the religious connotations of the moment. Since she fails to carry out a divine manifestation, Eveline could be said to be falling into spiritual decay when she is unable to follow the course revealed by a holy epiphany.

Joyce is unlikely to be providing a straightforward spiritual allegory, however, and he may even be bitterly ironic about the form of Eveline's divine epiphany and escape. Religion is a potentially dubious influence in the story, from the sickly yellow portrait of her father's priest friend to the fact that a perverse sort of religious duty confines Eveline to the home to the epiphany that guides her to the arms of a sailor she might not even love. Instead, the epiphany reveals Joyce's very subtle thinking about the actual resonance of this kind of religious imagery. He is likely to be using the religious reference to underscore and universalize the complications of Eveline's bleak choice, her confinement on all sides.

Symbolism

Although Dubliners was originally considered a strictly realist work, critics now largely place it alongside Joyce's later masterpieces and acknowledge its profound symbolism. "Eveline" is an extremely realistic and focused portrayal of two events in one important day, with a thoroughly developed psychological narrative. But the story also contains a variety of symbolic references that broaden its implications and possibly allegorize its content (turning it into a lesson for the reader to absorb).

The first symbol is overt, that of the print of Margaret Mary Alacoque. This prominent Irish Catholic symbol represents domestic security and piety, and Eveline notices it just as she is having her first doubts about leaving home. The print is beside a yellowing photograph of a priest who is Mr. Hill's friend and above a broken harmonium (a keyboard instrument with reeds), which may be meant to emphasize the disorder of the home or Eveline's discordant spirituality. The fact that the priest has emigrated is a particularly interesting detail, possibly implying that problems in domestic piety will follow Eveline elsewhere.

As discussed above, Brewster Ghiselin argues that the sea itself is a symbol for Christian rebirth and salvation, perhaps even representing the water of a baptismal font. He also writes that Eveline's failure to leave is a symbol of failure of the fourth cardinal virtue of Christianity — fortitude — and that "music symbolizes the motion of the soul toward life or the call of life to the soul." This might be why the music in the story — such as the Italian air from the street organ that reminds Eveline of her promise to her mother, Frank's sailor songs, and the boat whistle and bells that "clanged upon her heart" — is closely connected with the idea of leaving for faraway shores.