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The story ‘Eveline’, by James Joyce, talks about a young girl who faced with a choice between whether to stay in Dublin with her family or leave with her boyfriend for a new life in Buenos Aires, up to the last minutes to stay behind.
The story is divided into three sections: in the first section, Joyce introduced the reader to Eveline, her house, her environment and her childhood memories. In the second section, we meet Frank. Frank invites Eveline to follow him and make a new life in Buenos Aires. This is the central conflict of the plot. In the third section, Eveline deals with her interior conflict when it comes to making a decision and stay in Dolin with her family which is the conclusion of the story. Joyce shows us everything from Eveline’s point of view/ perspective by a third person narrator, giving the reader free access to Eveline’s thoughts through all her story. The objective description of facts is mingled with the protagonist’s impressions.
Eveline is a round character whose thought process changes as the story develops through the beginning, middle, and end of the narrative. The reader gets to know the other characters from Eveline’s point of view, her father in particular. The father is an abusive figure. Eveline remembers how he used to interrupt her childhood plays with her brothers, under the threat of his stick. Eveline’s father as a round character represents violence, irrationality, that pure instinct which can only be managed with kindness and understanding, not using rationality. He was violent and addicted to alcohol, but he was the man of the house. Another male character is the sailor Frank who is presented in clear opposition to Eveline’s father. While the father represents the harsh and unsatisfactory everyday reality that Eveline is forced to live, Frank is associated with the idea of freedom, of a new life, of economic independence. The most influential character (although she is dead) is Eveline’s mother: she is mentioned several times throughout the story, but in the third section, when Eveline is going to make a decision, she becomes crucial. Her mother represents what Eveline could become if she decides to stay in Dublin and to continue to suffer the domestic abuse of her father.
When Joyce wrote that Eveline “sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue” we know the objective fact that Eveline was watching out the window, but the same quotation may have another symbolic and psychological meaning: Eveline was alone, separated by the window from the outside world. Even the dusty curtains and the desolated street give us a clue about Eveline’s mood/ state of mind, the dust of the curtains is mentioned twice in the story as an indication of the neglect of her responsibility to keep house clean, as well as the hard work of her domestic life. The main conflict in the story is the struggle between Eveline and herself, along the story she struggles whether to stay in Dublin with her family or leave with her boyfriend for a new life in Buenos Aires, she made a promise to her mother that she will take care of the house as well as thinking of her old father. In the end she does not leave. Instead she decided to stay in Dublin and leave behind her beloved alone.
Joyce in his work captured his writing beautifully by using some figure of speech, at the very beginning of the story he uses ‘flashbacks’: Eveline sits at the window bringing back memories happened in her childhood and how they were playing with friends of the old street. On the end of the story the author resembles Eveline’s facial expression to that of an animal: ”She set her white face to him, passive, like a helpless animal. Her eyes gave him no sign of love or farewell or recognition”.
The author in his story depicts the difficult life of women in a male dominant society. Eveline as a woman lives in that time she has no right to make her decisions and afraid of what people may say about her. Also her relationship with her father as well as her beloved Frank is a clear example of how she is a fear and weak woman. Another message the author gives in the story is the idea of escape oppression since Eveline suffers from her abusive father and her heavy responsibilities towards her family. In an early age she dreamed in a new life and new opportunities to make her life better than her poor mother.
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