T h e a n a l y s i s of “Eveline”

A short story by James Joyes

Performed by Anna Halyts

 'Eveline' focuses on a young Irish
woman of nineteen years of age, who
plans to leave her abusive father and
poverty-stricken existence in Ireland, and
seek out a new, better life for herself and
her lover Frank in Buenos Aires
POINTS OF ANALYSIS
 Characters
 Plot
 Theme
 Setting
 Narrative technique
 Symbols
 Moral values
 CHARACTERS
1. Eveline Hill: the main character in this story
Eveline is a 19-year-old girl who finds life in 20th-century Dublin unbearable. She is a
dutiful daughter, who takes care of her family, especially her father.
Eveline oscillates between the two choices: she can either stay and enjoy the
comfort and familiarity of her home or she can run away from her oppressive and
stifling daily routine with her lover, Frank, to Argentina and embrace the unknown.

All the characters are seen through Eveline’s eyes

2. Frank
Originally from Dublin, but currently a sailor with a home in Buenos Ayres.
Frank meets Eveline on a visit to Dublin. He begins walking Eveline home after she
is finished working and eventually starts courting her.
Eveline describes him as “kind, manly, open-hearted” and likes hearing his stories
about his travels.
 Eveline’s father disapproves of Frank and one day after they quarrel, he
and Eveline have to start seeing each other in secret.
Frank invites Eveline to become his wife in Buenos Ayres.
Eveline is not in love with Frank, or at least not yet. They have only been
seeing each other for what seems to Eveline like a few weeks.

3. Eveline’s Father
He was abusive to Eveline’s siblings and mother, but spared her when
she was young since she was a girl.
He squabbles about money with Eveline on Saturdays, worried that she
will waste it.
He also forbids Eveline from seeing Frank, assuming that he is
unfaithful because he is a sailor.
4. Eveline’s Mother
She made a lot of sacrifices for her husband and family.
She died of an unspecified illness and was driven mad by her “life of
commonplace sacrifices.”

5. The Children
Eveline is in charge of feeding them and making sure they go to school. They
seem to have been part of the family since before her mother died although it
is difficult to differentiate if and when the narrator is talking about the children
she cares for and when she is talking about her siblings when they were young.
PLOT
Eveline is a young woman living in Dublin with her father. Her
mother is dead.
Dreaming of a better life beyond the shores of Ireland, Eveline
plans to elope with Frank, a sailor who is her secret lover
(Eveline’s father having forbade Eveline to see Frank after the
two men fell out) and start a new life in Argentina.
Eveline is responsible for the day-to-day running of the
household: her father is drunk and only reluctantly tips up his
share of the weekly housekeeping money and her brother Harry
is busy working and is away a lot on business (another brother,
Ernest, has died).
 Eveline herself keeps down a job working in a shop.
When father eventually hands over his housekeeping
money, Eveline has to go to the shops and buy the food for
the Sunday dinner at the last minute.
Eveline is tired of this life, and so she and Frank book
onto a ship leaving for Argentina.
But as she is just about to board the ship, Eveline suffers
a failure of resolve, and cannot go through with it. She
wordlessly turns round and goes home, leaving Frank to
board the ship alone.
 SETTING

The presence of the window gives the idea of the threshold between
the outer world and her.

 At the same time the crowd at the port reveals that same sense of
loneliness and loss she was experiencing.
 THEME
The unpredictability of decision making
and the epiphany at the very end of the
story.

 Paralysis vs. escape: she wants to leave

but at the end she can’t.

 Eveline represents the first woman

starting a new age but she fails: she gets
an example of the mythical method .

 The burden of family connections.

 NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE
Even though the novel is not told in the first person
narration, the author shows everything from Eveline’s
perspective. In this way the reader has free access to
Eveline’s thoughts and memories.

Words have an allusive symbolic appealing meaning.

Interior monologue, free direct speech and free

indirect speech.
 SYMBOLS
 Dust
Dust represents monotony. The dust in the house keeps collecting no matter how
frequently Eveline cleans it, paralleling the monotony of Eveline’s life in Dublin.
 Water
Water, specifically the sea, represents the unknown, and Joyce uses it to
illustrate Eveline’s fear of the unknown.
 Brown and Red
The author uses the color brown to signify the dreariness of Dublin.
Brown represents Eveline’s childhood image of Dublin and red represents the
changes that have happened in Dublin since Eveline has become an adult.