Consider the texts and hypothesize connections

C. Sfilli, Un mondo che abbiamo costruito noi, Messagero Veneto, 18 gennaio 2012

J. Joyce, Dubliners, Eveline (1914)

The texts offer a further example to analyse the question of effectiveness in communication. Both of them deal with adolescence but different textual typologies, perspectives, uses of language and areas of interests are conveyed.

         J. Joyce’s Eveline is a modernist, short, narrative story with the purpose of portrays the live of a young inhabitant of Dublin. The narrator focuses the reader’s attention on the ontological level: Eveline’s adolescence is problematically lived as a matter of existence. For this reason Joyce chooses to introduce the character of Eveline, who experiences the hardness of living through the need of making a fundamental decision between the possibilities of moving to an unknown world with a kind boy or staying in the place she has grown up. As a result Eveline is struggled between her family conditioning, past influence and the human need for love and safety, so that failure inevitable.

         Messaggero Veneto’s article is an epistolary dialogue on adolescence nowadays. Two points of view are presented but both of them deal with the social aspect of the matter and address to adults to invite them to consider behaviour examples they provide. C. Sfilli describes the controversial period of adolescence, pointing out the university of the problem and the importance of context. The dialogue looks for finding an explanation to girls’ behaviour. As a result it is a social problem.

         In my opinion Joyce’s text is more effective in analysing the question of adolescence because he looks for an understanding of the self in the context of the world and makes the reader consider his/her own identity. On the other hand, the article has a less level of effectiveness because the problem of adolescence itself is not grasped and external elements become the point.    Therefore in Eveline the problem of being is recognized and felt as human, in Un mondo che abbiamo costruito noi it is occasion to speak about social problems.