“Eveline” by James Joyce Essay

Eveline is a short baloney by James Joyce. Eveline is 19 and standing at a occasion in her life. She has a single election to make as she stands and reflects at the ship dock. The decision she must make is whether she should go with hotdog, her secret soon-to-be husband or stay with her father in the only place she has for ever pick outn. discourteous was very engaging, manly, open, hearted, (Joyce 45) and offers Eveline a new fellowship, in a strange unknown country (Joyce 44) in Buenos Ayres. Her father is aging, grumpy, and often threatens violence is she does not do what he says. Eveline ponders what her occupation really is. There are several(prenominal) good reasons for Eveline to leave with blunt and get married. Her brothers and sisters were all grown up, (Joyce 42) and her mother was dead. Her childhood friends, Tizzie Dun was dead and the Waters had moved derriere to England. She is forced to spend her days working in a storage making money she must turn over to her father. She spends her evenings taking manage of the house, her father, and two young children.This is not exactly the life she has read or so in romance novels or daydreamed about in grade school. It is weighty work and with the knowledge that Everything changes (Joyce 43) she wants to go away like the others, to leave her home. (Joyce 43). She knows if she stays, she volition stagnate. She will still be breathing but she will be just as dead as her mother if she chooses to stay. Frank offers her a life of new adventures and love. When she is married she will have respect and Frank will not be violent with Eveline as her father was with her mother. As Eveline tried to weigh each side of the question (Joyce 43) she begins to develop a list of reasons why she must stay. This is the only home Eveline as has ever known. It is full of familiar objects which she had dusted once a week for so many a(prenominal) years (Joyce 43). And wonders if she will ever see these things a gain.Here, with her father, she has food and shelter, and the comfort of the known. She likewise fears that the people she knows in town will consider her fool (Joyce 43) when they advance she had run away with a fellow (Joyce 43). Her father is old and forgetful, and she worries if he can take care of himself. The overwhelming reason why she feels it is her duty to stay because of her promise to keep the home together as massive as she could. (Joyce 47) to her mother just before she died. Evelines relationship with Frank is based solely on hope. Frank is a sailor who is kind but tells her tales of distant countries. He had started as a deck son at a pound a month on a ship of the Allan Line going out to Canada(Joyce 46). And her father warns I know these sailor chaps (Joyce 46). Is Frank being truthful or is he a typical sailor with a girl in every port. She hopes that he is telling her the truth because she has no other evidence that he is. Frank symbolizes escape. When she ref lects on her promise to her dying mother and her subsequent death she thinks to herself get around She must escape Frank would save her. He would give her life, maybe love, too But she wanted to live. Why should she be unhappy? She had a right to happiness. Frank would take her in his arms, fold her in his arms. He would save her.(Joyce 47). The question remains for Eveline, will she go with Frank or stay at home. Of course in the end she decides to stay. She chooses the known over unknown excitement. The comfort of stability and a familiar environment utmost outweighs her desire for a new life, in a new home with new people. In the end she chooses austere work a hard life but now that she was about to leave it she did not figure it a wholly undesirable life. (Joyce 45). Eveline is a story about choice and learning to live with the consequences of that choice.Works CitedJoyce, James. Dubliners. New York The Modern library, 1954. Questia. 6 Dec. 2005 .