Exercises at pag 514.

Comprehension:

• Evelin is wondering if she had to to left her home, where “she had shelter and food” to go away with a boy. 

• She would like to stay because there she know the people, she has a home, a job and a life even if it is hard. On the other hand she would like to leave because she will discover a new life, where she will be married and people will treat her respectively 

• The narrator says that she is nineteen, that she is afraid of her father because he threaten her for money and for her behavior and finally that she has to grown two children, probably her brothers. He analyses also her thought: she considers that life hard but she doesn’t hate it very much.

• Miss Gavan would be glad. She had always had it in for her.

• Eveline is a common, poor girl who has to look after her family but who also wish to escape and search for another life. Eveline’s father is an old man who doesn’t value the family a lot. He beat up his sons and now, after his wife’s death he begins to mistreat his daughter, pretending all her money. Instead, Frank is kind, manly, open-hearted and he seems to love Eveline.

Interpretation:

• the main time shifts concern past and memories, present actions and possibilities for future:
• First paragraph: “she sat...she was tired” → present actions
• Second paragraph: “few people...to leave her home” → memories
• Third paragraph: “Home!...Melbourne now” → feelings raised by past
• Fourth paragraph: “she had consented...leaving the Stores” → reflections on future
• Fifth paragraph: “But in her new home...undesirable life” → ideas of her possible new life and memories.
• Sixth paragraph: “she was about...he said” → past: description of how they had met
• Seventh paragraph: “one day...children laugh” → present actions and feelings raised by past.
• Eighth paragraph: “her time...Derevaun Seraun” → present actions and feelings raised by past.
• Ninth paragraph: “she stood up...save her” → present, her feelings and thoughts
• Tenth paragraph: “she stood among...fervent preyer” → present actions
• Eleventh paragraph: “a bell...Evvy” → present, her thoughts and feelings
• Twelfth paragraph: “he rushed...recognition” → present actions.

All the story is organized using no chronological order. There is a plot which is often interrupted by memories of the part that a detail or an action recall to her and by expectation of the future, of her new life.

• “a maze of distress” is the psychological condition of Evelin when she is leaving with Frank. This image could be associated with “all the seas of the world tumbled about her heart”.

• The phrase present Eveline as a thankful person who wants to follow the boy who she loves but who is also afraid to break the promise she engaged with her mother.

• Joyce in the story uses a third person omniscient narrator because he knows everything, also the feelings of the main character. So his point of view is the one of Eveline.