James Joyce's: Eveline

James Joyce's: Eveline

James Joyce's short story "Eveline" is about a young woman living in Dublin in the nineteenth century facing a troubling situation. She is faced with the decision to either stay in Dublin with her abusive, alcoholic father or to escape to Buenos Ayres with Frank, a sailor who has been courting Eveline, in search of a new life. Eveline decides to stay in the gloomy and sad life she already knows instead of running off into a new life of the unknown. For readers to understand Eveline's decision to stay with her father, we have to assess the reasons that prevented her from living her new life. Eveline's decision was based on her fear of the unknown, she does not know Frank that well and the commitment she has to her family.

The first reason Eveline stays with her father is because she does not have the courage to leave. Eveline tries to convince herself that her life is not "wholly undesirable" (Joyce, 2) but Joyce shows his readers the difficulty and struggle her life is and how undesirable it had become. "She looked around the room, reviewing all its familiar objects, which she had dusted one a week for some many years, wondering where on earth all the dust came from. Perhaps she would never see again those familiar objects from which she had never dreamed of being divided." (Joyce, 1). Joyce gives readers textual evidence that Eveline is not ready to be sperated from her life in Dublin with her father.

The second reason Eveline chooses to stay with her father in Dublin is because she does not know Frank all that well. "What would they say of her in the Stores when they found out that she had run away with a fellow? Say she was a fool, perhaps; and her placed would be filled up by advertisement." (Joyce, 1). Eveline was afraid of what the town's people would say when they hear that she has ran away with a fellow to whom she was not married to. Also, she never seemed that found of him, within the second page, Joyce writes "...when he sang about the lass that loves a sailor, she always felt pleasantly confused." (Joyce, 2). Joyce illustrates for readers clues that Eveline is falling in love with the idea of the new life and not Frank.

The third reason Evelin chooses to stay in Dublin with her father is because of the commitment she has to her family. Before Evelin's mother passed, she had promised her mother "...to keep the home together as long as she could" (Joyce, 2). Another reason that Evelin choose to stay in Dublin is because of fear her father has instilled in his daughter. Joyce admits "Even now, though she was over nineteen, she sometimes felt herself in danger of her father's violence. She knew it was that that had given her palpitations." (Joyce, 2).

The major theme in the short story of "Eveline" by James Joyce, screams