Eveline

Characterization: Eveline is an adolescence living with her father and brothers. “She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue. Her head was leaned against the window curtains and in her nostrils was the odour of dusty cretonne.” it looks like she feels trapped in her own house, watching outside the window unknown people passing by and wondering about her life. She has been responsible since when her mother died and she had to take care of her brothers, defending them from their father’s violence. She feels responsible for all the family; but she takes advantage of this feeling not to leave home and to start building her life. “She had consented to go away, to leave her home. Was that wise? She tried to weigh each side of the question.” She is a very tentative person, too afraid to decide which path to choose. She depends on other people’s opinion, whom she doesn’t even really care about, like Miss Gavan.

Through the narrative technique of showing, it is clear she is not happy where she is now: she is not respect by anyone, her co-workers make fun of her, her father abuses her, and she is alone. In spite of this, she is so insecure to leave, she lies to herself saying “It was hard work—a hard life—but now that she was about to leave it she did not find it a wholly undesirable life.”

Setting: Dublin – mostly a closed familiar pale (Eveline’s house)

Narrative techniques:

∙          showing;

∙          outside 3rd person narrator;

∙          many description of places, secondary characters, family traditions and relationships;

∙          inner thoughts;

∙          mainly from Eveline’s point of view

∙          Flashbacks and flash-forwards