Learning Paths » 5B Interacting
EVELINE'S ANALISYS
Eveline is a short story belonging to Dubliners by James Joice. This story represents the centre of paralysis (both physical and metaphoric point of view). The protagonist is Eveline. She is adolescence. The short story is indeed part of the section of Dubliners devoted to adolescence.
Write from the start the protagonist belongs to the working class and she is looking at the outside world from her house. She perceives external reality as a threat as the intelligent can see "the evening invade the avenue" the verb to invade is taken from the semantic feel of fight.
The author organized the short story in sequences. And every sequence has got an aim. The first is to let the reader know about Eveline's life.
The setting is made up by space and time, some novelist privilege s some kind of space. Modernist writers privilege the inner space that is the space of consciousness of the mind, of private thoughts, feelings and emotions. In Mrs Dalloway for example we have both external space time and inner space time. Modernist privilege inner space time. The concept of time of Modernist fiction is a simultaneous concept of time has we can see in Eveline. In Eveline's case we can see her present has make alive by her memory of the past and in her expectation of the future.
The third sequence starts with an explanation that expresses her feelings.
Let's notice the linguistic choices: Joice uses repetitions that are "suffocated ".
Joice chooses objects and language to return to the reader a symbolic realism, for example he uses words that reminds to the reader the idea of death. Her house is made of broken things and furniture dusty photographs near other colored pictures of saintssuffocating role of the Catholic religion.
The novel is divided into scenes, that becames the paradigm of Eveline's ineptitude.
Joyce returns to the area of a sequence a way of being that he called paralysis, that fear of not knowing how to cope with life, always thinking of others.
Eveline's paralysis is in her head, she hasn't got a sure point of view, she doesn't know what she likes or not.