Eveline (Criticism)

Criticism

Scott Trudell

Trudell is a freelance writer with a bachelor's degree in English literature. In the following essay, Trudell examines the elements of Freudian theory beneath Joyce's psychological portrait of Eveline.

On either side of Eveline's major life decision about whether to leave her home is a suspect and potentially abusive man. Because of the manner in which Joyce has set up the story, however, she must choose one of them; and due in large part to what is probably the result of years of psychological and physical abuse, Eveline pictures both of these men as her potential protector. She seems to be searching for a tender father figure; somewhat illogically, she tries to balance her father's increasing capacity for violence by remembering three random acts of gentleness. And she pictures Frank in a similar way, as a savior and protector to "take her in his arms, fold her in his arms," repeating as if to convince herself that "he would save her."

In his 1993 book Reading Dubliners Again, in which he studies the collection from a Lacanian perspective (based on the theories of the psychologist Jacques Lacan, who is associated with the literary movement of postmodernism), Garry Leonard discusses Eveline's desire to subject her self to a "nice" father in terms of what Lacan would call a participant in the male-dominated symbolic world:

The hope that Frank will be an unconditionally loving father is the result of a feminine fantasy on her part about belonging to a benevolent phallic economy that would regard her as a particularly valuable object of exchange.

In other words, in Eveline's subconscious mind, which is deeply infused with the sexism she has learned from her culture and from her abuser, she can only conceive of her "value" as the property of a father figure. Her choice, Leonard believes, is simply to find which masculine master would deem her of greater value as a sexual object (not even which one would treat her better). Elements of the story, such as Eveline concentrating on her duty to her father and concern that "he would miss her," as well as language like "He would give her life," in reference to Frank, use such passive language as to support the idea that she has a completely servile understanding of her self worth. Leonard then goes on to discuss the presence of Eveline's own sexual desire and how it finds a form in the story, arguing that the final scene can be interpreted as Eveline's sexual orgasm that the male perspective of the story fails to understand.

This is where Leonard's analysis fails to ring true; despite his insistence that Eveline's "jouissance" (a word from postmodern theory that means orgasmic pleasure at the expense of others) cannot be understood from the male-dominated perspective of the story, the final scene is undoubtedly a devastating failure for Eveline. It is certainly true that she is, seemingly willingly, objectified into the property either of her father or her lover, but it is doubtful that the end of the story could in any way represent her orgasm. The bleakness of the situation and Eveline's dismal paralysis that will probably lead to her own nervous breakdown (signaled by the "palpitations" her father's abuse has already started to give her) imply, to the contrary, that she is stifling the orgasm Frank offers by repeating, "Come!"

Perhaps, then, despite Leonard's progressive insight into the ways that Joyce's story can be applied to more recent psychological theory, it will be more helpful to return to the discussion of earlier critics and examine the story in relation to the theories of the famous psychoanalyst that was Joyce's contemporary, Sigmund Freud. Already incredibly influential over the literary world at the time Joyce was writing "Eveline," Freud had in 1900 published The Interpretation of Dreams, which began to develop his ideas about the "Oedipal Complex" that would become central to his later work on sexuality. Joyce was very much aware of Freud's work, and psychoanalysis would come to be associated with some of the most fundamental explorations of the modernist forms that Dubliners helped to develop. Applying the Freudian Oedipal drama to "Eveline," therefore, will provide a fruitful understanding of the story's portrayal of psychological development.

According to Freud, attraction to a parent of the opposite sex and rivalry with the parent of the same sex represents an extremely important developmental stage for children. Psychoanalysis attributes much abnormal psychology in later life to a failure to successfully emerge from this role, highlights its prevalence in dreams and in primitive societies, and ultimately concludes that it is a central conflict for all of human psychology. Freud began with some ambiguity about the distinction between boys and girls in their enactment of the Oedipal drama, but as his 1916 "Development of the Libido and Sexual Organizations" lecture clarifies, he considered that

things proceed in just the same way, with the necessary reversal, in little girls. The loving devotion to the father, the need to do away with the superfluous mother and to take her place, the early display of coquetry and the arts of later womanhood, make up a particularly charming picture in a little girl, and may cause us to forget its seriousness and the grave consequences which may later result from this situation.

Grave consequences indeed follow for Eveline, in whom the reader notices the key symptoms of an Oedipal complex: major problems in adult sexuality that relate to her parents. Joyce seems to be implying that Eveline has failed to emerge from a childhood attraction to her father, which is a vital element in Freud's analysis of the complex, in a number of ways. First, Joyce makes it clear that Eveline has a rather ungrounded attraction to her father when she says, "Sometimes he could be very nice," and remembers three instances of his tenderness. In fact, it is particularly interesting that Mr. Hill puts on his wife's bonnet because it was an important belief of Freud's that pre-pubescent girls are first attracted to their mothers before they begin their more prolonged attraction to their fathers.

Secondly, there is Eveline's fondness for her brothers, although they have disappeared as possible incestuous partners (consider Freud's remarks later in "Development of the Libido and Sexual Organizations" that incestuous partners are a detriment to emergence from the Oedipal complex: "A little girl takes an older brother as a substitute for the father who no longer treats her with the same tenderness as in her earliest years.") The fact that Harry and Ernest have departed from Eveline's life would imply, in Freudian terms, that she is now freer to find a non-incestuous, although father-like, sexual partner. For Freud, the only possibility of successful escape from the Oedipal drama is with a father-like lover that will eventually lead the female child to what Freud would consider "normality," or what Eveline might mean by "life." Of course, this lover is Frank; as has already been established, Eveline treats her lover as another version of her father, a new father that will protect her and "perhaps love" her but, more importantly, "give her life."

Perhaps the most convincing evidence that "Eveline" can be read as a Freudian Oedipal drama, however, is the influence of Mrs. Hill on the story. Eveline has taken her mother's place in exact parallel to Freud's theory. She acts as her father's housewife to the point where even Mr. Hill associates her with his late wife when he becomes abusive toward her: "latterly he had begun to threaten her and say what he would do to her only for her dead mother's sake." There is a perverse sense in this phrase, and throughout the story, that sex is always related to a violent exchange of property, that intercourse itself is implied in what he would "do to her." Confrontational with her mother's ghost but unable to disregard the promise to fulfill her duty, "keep the home together," and inhabit Mrs. Hill's own doomed role (including her nervous breakdown), Eveline is condemning herself to a life of Oedipal inhibition.

Joyce supports this idea, which many critics have termed Eveline's "paralysis," with sophisticated symbolism. The author is by no means straightforward in his implication that Eveline has failed to successfully emerge from her Freudian conflict via its only solution, her lover. Many suspicions about Frank's character are implied in the text, including his symbolic association with exile and questionable morality, since Buenos Aires was associated with prostitution and the "Patagonians" he describes were notorious for their barbarity. Also, the night boat journey from the "North wall" may be a reference to the mythological voyage through the river Styx to the Underworld and therefore Eveline's death (as opposed to the "life" of psychological normality she seems to desire).

But the main force of the symbolism in the story, including the sea as spiritual regeneration and baptismal font, is Ireland as Eveline's mother finally sees it: "Derevaun Seraun" (which probably means something like "worms are the only end" and certainly connotes terrifying oppression). Take the climax of Eveline's psychosexual development:

— Come!

All the seas of the world tumbled about her heart. He was drawing her into them: he would drown her. She gripped with both hands at the iron railing.

— Come!

No! No! No! It was impossible. Her hands clutched the iron in frenzy.

It is understandable why Leonard sees an orgasm here, but examined from the Freudian lens it is clear that this orgasm is Frank's, and that Eveline's is denied; instead of "Yes! Yes! Yes!" she experiences "No! No! No!" The orgasmic seas of the world, she feels, will drown her, so she grips the phallic alternative to Frank, the iron railing that echoes the first image of her father's "blackthorn stick." It is no surprise that, like her mother, gripping this iron railing representing Mr. Hill sends Eveline into a "frenzy" that reminds us of her palpitations and her mother's nervous breakdown.

Eveline has, in Freudian terms, become entirely frigid and failed to escape from the prison of her own psychology. The only method of emergence from the Oedipal complex, despite his suspect intentions and his own orgasm seeming to drown Eveline, is Frank, so it is no surprise that the final imagery of the story is one of suppression and regression to extreme infancy: "She set her white face to him, passive, like a helpless animal." Joyce is at one of his bleakest moments here, envisioning almost hopeless psychological oppression as Eveline is unable to break free of her abusive father.

Source: Scott Trudell, Critical Essay on "Eveline," in Short Stories for Students, Gale, 2004.

What Do I Read Next?

• A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce's autobiographical first novel, was serialized between 1914 and 1915 in Ezra Pound's magazine Egoist. One of the most influential early modernist works, the novel took much critical attention away from Dubliners because of its radical innovations in form, and it is perhaps more accessible than Joyce's famous Ulysses.
• Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts, a domestic drama in which an ill young man returns to his mother's home and begins to uncover some of their dark family history, was very influential over Joyce's efforts to forge a new literary style. Written in 1881, Ghosts is a landmark in modern literature.
• Virginia Woolf's first novel The Voyage Out, published in 1915 but revised and republished in 1920, is the story of a young woman's emigration from England to South America and her confrontation with a patriarchal society. It shares many stylistic similarities with Dubliners, and its plot resonates strongly with that of "Eveline."
• Edited by T. W. Moody and F. X. Martin, The Course of Irish History (2002) offers a variety of essays by prominent historians on each major period of Irish history, evoking a broad understanding of Ireland's turbulent politics and social conditions.
• In Our Time, Ernest Hemingway's debut collection of short stories, published in 1925, employs a style very distinct from that of Joyce and reveals some of the further innovations in fiction prevalent when literary modernism was at its height.