Wednesday, November 17, 2010

"Eveline" by James Joyce

Throughout this story, Eveline evaluates her situation and is talking about leaving Dublin to start a new life with Frank. It is not until she is about to board the ship that Eveline finally decides not to go with Frank and to go back to her father. I think that while her judgement of abandoning her family and the two young children she had been put in charge of played a role in her choosing not to go, she was also somewhat stuck in Dublin because of her being afraid of change. Her judgement was somewhat twisted in this story because her father was verbally abusive to her and physically abusive toward her brothers and he was an alcoholic but she still felt obligated to him. Personally, I find this odd because I would think she would feel obligated toward Frank because of all that he had done for her. I believe that she did not really make a conscious decision to not go with Frank until she was sitting at station. Her "decision" wasn't really so much of a decision as it was her being unable to make a decision because she was paralyzed with emotions. I think that in the end, it was this paralyzes that cause Eveline to refuse to go with Frank.

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