Eveline
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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 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 being a spendthrift.
She is going to leave Ireland for good with a sailor named
Frank. He has a home in Buenos Ayres. Frank treats her
respectfully and with great tenderness, and he entertains her
with stories about his travels around the world. Her father
dislikes him.
Still, she loves her father and regrets the idea of leaving
him in his old age. At times he can be kind. She remembers her
mother's death, when she promised her mother to keep the home
together as long as she could. Her mother lived a life "of
commonplace sacrifices closing in final craziness" (33). She
finished babbling the enigmatic phrase "Derevaun Seraun!" again
and again. The fear of that memory strengthens the resolve in
Eveline to leave.
But at the station, with the boat ready to leave, she is
paralyzed. She cannot go; the world is too frightening. "All the
seas of the world tumbled about her heart. He [Frank] was
drawing her into them: he would drown her" (34). Frank calls to
her, trying to get her to board with the rush of people. She
merely stares at him as if he is a stranger.
Analysis
This story focuses on the theme of escape. While the young
boy narrators of the previous stories are too young to leave
Ireland or do anything about their poverty, 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
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" (33). 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; at best it is corrupt Gaelic.
The meaninglessness of the phrase suggests, metaphorically, that
the sacrifices have also been meaningless. Eveline's mother 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 concise
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 far worse than
that of the three boy narrators of the previous stories. She
is trapped in an ugly situation, responsible for her
siblings and the aging father who abuses her.
Paralysis is a common theme in Dubliners, and
poor Eveline finds herself unable to move forward. She lacks the
courage and strength to make that leap that will free her of her
oppressive situation. She's too scared to leave Ireland, and
sees her lover as a possible source of danger: "All the seas of
the world tumbled about her heart. He [Frank] was drawing her
into them: he would drown her" (34). But her paralysis will cost
her. Instead of an uncertain but hopeful future, she faces a
certain and dismal future that may well repeat her mother's sad
life story. |