James Joyce's Eveline Essay

Submitted By JulianEpps94
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Pages: 6
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Julian Epps
Dr. Campbell
ENGL 1102 PP
25 January 2013
Eveline’s Mental Dilemma To a sensible person the choices Eveline makes in Joyce’s short story “Eveline” seem foolish at first glance. Why wouldn’t Eveline run away from a life that seems almost meaningless? An abusive father, degrading job and routine life seem to be reason enough to want to leave. Not to mention Frank, a young man whom Eveline has become quite fond of who seems to be a well of and treats her with respect, unlike her own father. However, it is made quite obvious that to Eveline there are much stronger forces at play that beckon her to stay, perhaps the most important being her mother’s dying wish and her fear of the unknown. There must certainly be some underlying issue buried deep within Eveline’s past that affects her decision making. From early on in the story we can see that Eveline is not over joyed about leaving her home behind. Joyce paints an extremely dreary scene, as Eveline sits quietly in a dusty room with her head against the window and a note in her lap, watching night fall as a single man walks down the street. She remembers her child hood and playing in the fields with her neighborhood friends. As she thinks she begins to remember all the little things she will miss, even things as insignificant as dusting old items begin to weigh heavily on her and she quickly spirals into a sort of guilt trip, while at the same time trying to convince herself she has reason enough to leave. Joyce says that Eveline has “consented” (4) to go away with Frank. This is significant as it suggests that leaving her home was not an idea of her own, but yet had agreed to leave with Frank. Frank’s importance to Eveline can also be questioned; she never says that she is definitively in love with Frank. She more than likely just enjoys the attention she is shown and maybe she feels as though Frank fills a void in her life that her father has created, as she has never had a man in her life to treat her to expenses she could not previously afford. She realizes that Frank is a nice man and seems grateful for him, but by no means does she express a large amount of affection for him. No doubt it must be difficult to decide to run off and marry a man whom she cannot honestly say she is in love with. To the reader and maybe even Eveline herself, it seems as though her mother’s dying wish “to keep the home together as long as she could” (Joyce 6) would be the strongest force holding her to her home in Ireland. Even though we only get a small glimpse of her childhood via a flashback that Eveline recollects of her father, mother and brothers, I believe it is safe to assume that any relationship a child has with his or her mother is a delicate and personal one, and is generally more respected than a relationship that child may have with its father. Certainly the dying wish of a loved one is nothing to be taken lightly, when this loved one happens to be the mother, regardless of her physical or mental condition at the time of death. That wish is subconsciously made much more important to Eveline due to the relationship most children have with their mothers. In addition Joyce seems to place some significance on the “coloured print of the promises made to Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque” (Joyce 4). These prints of the promises Jesus made to “those who honor His Sacred Heart” (de Bondt) suggest that Eveline had been raised in a home where promises were something to be respected given her religious background. Even so, what did she really owe her mother? The only one remaining in the house that she swore to take care of was her drunk and abusive father, a man so violent it causes her to have “palpitations” (Joyce 4). There is no one there to protect her from her father’s drunken rage, her brother Ernest had passed away, her brother Harry had business in the country, and everyone she had known had already moved away. It’s possible that she simply felt
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