Analysis of Eveline written by James Joyce

Eveline is a short story taken from the collection called "Dubliners", written by James Joyce between 1904 and 1914. It is organized in 12 sequences which portray the interior conflict of a young girl. She is 19 years old, she lives in Dublin, she is an orphan, she belongs to the working class.  

The first is an introductory sequence which explains what Eveline is doing, and introduces Eveline's mood. James Joyce uses the simple past to describe the stillness of the opening scene.

The second is a narrative sequence. Through what she observes, Joyce introduces us to something about her childhood. James Joyce uses the simple past and the syntactical form "used to". The first implies something finished, past and concluded. The second implies past habits: the function is to tell the reader Eveline's past life.

The third is a descriptive sequence which analyzes Eveline's attitude towards her home. James Joyce uses the simple past and the past perfect. The past perfect implies a distant past and describes actions Eveline had done in the past. The function of the simple past is to tell the reader what Eveline has got in her home: it describes her familiar objects.

The fourth is a narrative sequence which explains where Eveline works. Besides Joyce analyzes her indecision either to leave or not to leave. James Joyce uses the past perfect, the simple past and the conditional wood. The difference between the two past tenses evidences Eveline's doubts about her decision to leave. Thanks to the conditional form the reader can understand some of Eveline expectations about her decision.

The fifth is a narrative sequence which explains Eveline's every-day life in the present, in the past and her expectations towards her future. James Joyce uses the conditional form to express what Eveline expects from her planned future. The syntactical form "used to" and the past perfect focus on the habits of Eveline and what happened in her past life. The writer describes her present every-day life using the simple past.

The sixth is a descriptive sequence which describes Frank, Eveline's boyfriend. It analyzes his mood, his work, his childhood and the way they met. James Joyce uses the simple past in order to describe Frank. The syntactical form "used to" focuses the reader's attention on the two young guys and their habits.

The past perfect is used to describes Frank's life.

The seventh is a narrative sequence which evidences Eveline's decision to leave her home. Before living she writes two letters, one to her father and one to her brother. She thinks over her feelings towards them. J. Joyce uses the simple past to describe what is happening. The past perfect evidences past moments of happiness in Eveline's life.

The eighth is a narrative sequence which evidences the promise that Eveline made to her mother before she died, and evidences the importance that the promise still has to her. James Joyce uses the past continuous to evidence the passing of time. The simple past focuses our attention on the stillness of the scene.

The ninth and the tenth are two narrative sequences. Remembering her mother's pitiful life and death, Eveline realizes she must escape from her home. She feels she has to look for happiness somewhere else. James Joyce uses the simple past to focus the reader's attention on what Eveline feels about her mother. He also uses the conditional form in order to underline her expectation about her leaving.

The eleventh is a descriptive sequence which describes the harbor and Eveline's mood about what she is going to do. James Joyce uses the simple past in order to describe what is happening to Eveline at the harbor.

The last is a dialogued sequence by which Frank tries to convince Eveline to follow him. Eveline realizes she can't leave her home, her father, her bother and last but not least her childhood. She is paralyzed. James Joyce uses the simple past to evidence her decision not to leave. The verb "come!", the only one at the present tense, implies action and she is not able to do it.

The sequences are linked together by the use of the "stream of consciousness" and the "interior monologue". This technique, used by James Joyce, helps the reader to better understand Eveline's mood, and how Eveline behaves. The sequences are also linked together by a technical device which is the use of different tenses with different aims.

James Joyce uses various past tenses with different aims.

·    The simple past describes Eveline's attitude in the moment the story takes place. It evidences what the writer wants to tell about her. It underlines remarkable events of Eveline's life and of her childhood.

·    The present perfect is used to express actions and attitudes the characters had had in their life before that moment. It helps to underline Eveline's behavior in the past.

·    The syntactical form "used to" focuses the reader's attention on past habits of the main characters. It is about something which usually was or did happen but it does not exist anymore.