Category: Eveline

“One life behind and one before, and I that stood between”, – wrote Rosemary Dobson in her poem ‘Cock Crow’. This illustrates the universal human experience of paradox between individual’s aspirations and their social responsibility which confronts us all. Dobson’s poem ‘Cock Crow’ examines the inner struggle of a young mum who is overwhelmed by domestic duties and yearning to know what lays beyond. The entrapment arising from conforming to societal expectations can shapes a women’s life as clearly expressed within ‘Amy Caroline’. This personal conflicts can also be seen within James Joyce’s modernist short story ‘Eveline’ as Eveline must also chose between her familial duty and desire for a new life aboard. The struggle of finding a balance between one’s commitment and personal pursuits is a common dilemma faced by women and can cause emotional distress. Both Dobson’s ‘Cock Crow’ and Joyce’s ‘Eveline’ provide insights into this human conflict.

‘Cock Crow’ portrays a young mum’s brief escape from her maternal duties during the night. In the first stanza the persona “was wanting to be myself, alone’’. Dobson syntactically isolates ‘alone’, placing emphasis on persona’s desire to escape from her domestic duty. This is affirmed in the second stanza through ”three times I took that lonely stretch, three times the dark trees closed round’, where the high modality of “I took” demonstrates the persona’s desire for independence and her choice to pursue personal time. Dobson utilises a biblical allusion to Peter’s betrayal of Jesus in “three times” accentuates a similar sense of guilt in escaping the social constraint. After a brief escape, the persona returns home. In the final stanza: ‘And turned the handle of the door thinking i knew his meaning well’’. The motif of the door symbolises a return to domestic duty and confinement. This indicates the persona’s struggle and her acceptance of family duty.

Similarly, the inability of individuals to escape from the challenges imposed by social constraints can be seen through Joyce’s ‘Eveline’. Eveline portrays a nineteen years old Dublin girl facing a crucial choice of her life, staying in her harsh life with her abusive father or escainge with her young lover Frank to a new world. In the opening of ‘Eveline” the stagnant lifelesnesss life led by Eveline is demonstrated through the symbolism of ‘dust’: “her head was leaned against the window curtains and in her nostrils was the odour of dusty cretonne”. The audience is immediately able to visualise how old and grimy her life is which is later contrasted to the good air in Buenos Aires and the sea, both emblematic for escape and a new life. Mid-way through, Eveline ponders: ‘strange that it should come that very night to remind her of the promise she made her mother, her promise to keep the home together as long as she could’. The repetition of “promise..to her mother” reiterates the gravity of her dilemma: she is caught between her duties as a domestic caregiver and her own desires. Once again, this can be linked to the modernist idea of re-evaluation of female roles in society.

The story ‘Eveline’, by James Joyce, talks about a young girl who faced with a choice between whether to stay in Dublin with her family or leave with her boyfriend for a new life in Buenos Aires, up to the last minutes to stay behind.

The story is divided into three sections: in the first section, Joyce introduced the reader to Eveline, her house, her environment and her childhood memories. In the second section, we meet Frank. Frank invites Eveline to follow him and make a new life in Buenos Aires. This is the central conflict of the plot. In the third section, Eveline deals with her interior conflict when it comes to making a decision and stay in Dolin with her family which is the conclusion of the story. Joyce shows us everything from Eveline’s point of view/ perspective by a third person narrator, giving the reader free access to Eveline’s thoughts through all her story. The objective description of facts is mingled with the protagonist’s impressions.

Eveline is a round character whose thought process changes as the story develops through the beginning, middle, and end of the narrative. The reader gets to know the other characters from Eveline’s point of view, her father in particular. The father is an abusive figure. Eveline remembers how he used to interrupt her childhood plays with her brothers, under the threat of his stick. Eveline’s father as a round character represents violence, irrationality, that pure instinct which can only be managed with kindness and understanding, not using rationality. He was violent and addicted to alcohol, but he was the man of the house. Another male character is the sailor Frank who is presented in clear opposition to Eveline’s father. While the father represents the harsh and unsatisfactory everyday reality that Eveline is forced to live, Frank is associated with the idea of freedom, of a new life, of economic independence. The most influential character (although she is dead) is Eveline’s mother: she is mentioned several times throughout the story, but in the third section, when Eveline is going to make a decision, she becomes crucial. Her mother represents what Eveline could become if she decides to stay in Dublin and to continue to suffer the domestic abuse of her father.

When Joyce wrote that Eveline “sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue” we know the objective fact that Eveline was watching out the window, but the same quotation may have another symbolic and psychological meaning: Eveline was alone, separated by the window from the outside world. Even the dusty curtains and the desolated street give us a clue about Eveline’s mood/ state of mind, the dust of the curtains is mentioned twice in the story as an indication of the neglect of her responsibility to keep house clean, as well as the hard work of her domestic life. The main conflict in the story is the struggle between Eveline and herself, along the story she struggles whether to stay in Dublin with her family or leave with her boyfriend for a new life in Buenos Aires, she made a promise to her mother that she will take care of the house as well as thinking of her old father. In the end she does not leave. Instead she decided to stay in Dublin and leave behind her beloved alone.

Joyce in his work captured his writing beautifully by using some figure of speech, at the very beginning of the story he uses ‘flashbacks’: Eveline sits at the window bringing back memories happened in her childhood and how they were playing with friends of the old street. On the end of the story the author resembles Eveline’s facial expression to that of an animal: ”She set her white face to him, passive, like a helpless animal. Her eyes gave him no sign of love or farewell or recognition”.

The author in his story depicts the difficult life of women in a male dominant society. Eveline as a woman lives in that time she has no right to make her decisions and afraid of what people may say about her. Also her relationship with her father as well as her beloved Frank is a clear example of how she is a fear and weak woman. Another message the author gives in the story is the idea of escape oppression since Eveline suffers from her abusive father and her heavy responsibilities towards her family. In an early age she dreamed in a new life and new opportunities to make her life better than her poor mother.