Eveline analysis

Eveline, a short story that belong to the novel Dubliner wrote by James Joyce, describes the life of an adolescence who has the opportunity to change her routine life but she is unable to leave her familiar community in Dublin.

The narrator is third person narrator who uses the free direct and indirect speech.

The main character is Eveline, as the title suggests, the secondary characters are Eveline’s father and Frank. The short story is arranged into three parts. The first part introduces the situation, in the second part Eveline’s thoughts about her past, her present and her future come out. In the last one the reader can understand the paralysis of the character indeed it shows Eveline and Frank at the station and she does not move; it is a dramatic conclusion.

Eveline represents perfectly the people of Dublin, because she behaves as if she were paralysed. The reader can understand that right from the start: “She sat at the window”. With this phrase comes out another aspect of Eveline: she lives and sees the life through a protective scree (his home). This is due to her family, in particular to her father and by the death of her mother. Indeed Eveline’s father is always drunk, violent and he mistreats his family.

All these come out in the second part through the protagonist memories.

Also, in this part comes out the figure of Frank, Eveline’s boy friend. He is a sailor; he is the opposite of Eveline. He represents a man without a real steady point, who can leave one place to another. He is Eveline’s escape, but she is too much paralyzing to go away with him.