www.marilenabeltramini.it |  Site map | Search  | Advanced search
[Forum]  [Wiki]  [Blog] [SW 2005/06] [SW 2006/07]    [login]
Home  » Learning Paths » Eveline and Dubliners
Study Areas
    » class
    » 2A
    » 3A
    » 4A
    » 5C
    » 5D
    » teacher
LBianchin - Eveline
[author: Luca Bianchin - postdate: 2008-01-02]

Short analysis of Eveline

 

 

The description  of Eveline starts in medias res. Joyce introduces Eveline while she is thinking thus the reader immediately understands the importance of personal reflection in the story. Eveline has got a pain she can't express to anybody, therefore she escapes to another worlds: from the past in which she felt happy with the small things of her childhood, to the future expectations, that are also spatial distances, she dreams of far away places where she finally find her right place. The present is obsessive (she looks outside the "curtains") and all the apparitions in the present may hurt Eveline, who is strong to manage a family, but not enough to bear the oppressiveness of her home town.
She, like all the adolescents, wants to escape to the real world but as most of them isn't able to take the fatal decision.
On the contrary Dubliners who keep the same ordinary life pass out in the streets: Eveline stands waiting for something to show her the way to go out.
The atmosphere surrounding her surely don't encourage changing but she has the possibility to go out from Dublin.
The perspective is provided by Frank, the boyfriend her father chose for her, who is leaving to Argentina, but when she has to take her personal decision she feels full of doubts. First of all, she was tied to Dublin to the promise she made to her mother when she was dying to manage the family. Moreover Eveline lives behind a "curtain" in Dublin because of the paralyzing atmosphere of the city, which doesn't either provide her with the possibility of changing her status.
She goes on the quay and the first difficulties suggest her to remain: it is easier for Eveline to obey to the call Dublin sends her, than acting against her world to gain her independence.
Eveline isn't described as a woman because she doesn't become a wife. As a matter of fact she remains in Dublin where she has no possibilities to feel herself plenty accomplished as a woman.
She doesn't get aware of her possibilities, she refuses her independent role in the world, she accepts her passive role in Dublin because she doesn't want to risk.
In particular Joyce uses two different pronouns to characterize her figure: in the first part he uses mainly female pronouns like "she, her" while in the second part neutral pronouns like "it" prevail. The fact is relevant if you consider the regression Eveline undergoes during the story: from an adolescent girl (desire subject) to a being who refused its freedom in becoming a woman and a wife (subject zero).

 

 

World references


Operation: funzionamento
Drub: triste, squallido, desolato
Dingy: sporco, povero