‘Eveline’ by James Joyce
Summary: Young Eveline resides in Dublin with her father. Eveline, who yearns for a better life outside the borders of Ireland, planned to elope with Frank, a sailor who she has been seeing secretly (Eveline's father forbade her from seeing Frank after the two broke out), and begin a new life in Argentina. Eveline is left in charge of taking care of the household after her mother's death because her brother Harry is too busy working and frequently traveling for business, her father is intoxicated, and another brother, Ernest, has passed away. Eveline continues to work as a store employee. When he finally gives Eveline his housekeeping money, she needs to run out and pick up the Sunday dinner's food at the last minute. Eveline and Frank board a ship bound for Argentina because Eveline is sick of this existence. But just as Eveline is about to board the ship, she experiences a lack of resolve and is unable to follow through.
Analysis: Joyce was interested in this relationship and thought that Ireland, which frequently had a tendency to nostalgically look backward and hold onto the past, needed to advance and strive to bring itself up to date. "Eveline" explores the relationship between the past and the future by examining a single person's attitude toward their life in Dublin. Joyce wished to see Ireland modernize, in contrast to Yeats who supported the "Celtic Twilight," a mystical, traditional picture of Ireland as a realm of faery and history. Her abusive father emphasizes the idea that the older generation needs to be cast off if young Ireland is to shape itself in Joyce's description of her current situation as dull, uninteresting, and even oppressive. Even the positive elements of the old Ireland, like Eveline's mother and her older brother Ernest, had long since passed away. The promise of a fresh start in a new nation, in a place whose name literally means "good air," seems to be the most effective method to leave Ireland's musty, old air behind: With Frank, she was going to experience a new life. Eveline clings to the barrier as if she were clinging to ancient Ireland and the past that is dead and gone but that she cannot leave behind when the time comes to make a decision, the moment when she must board the boat. There used to be a field there where they used to play every evening with other people's children, so he rushed across the fence and called to her to follow. The field was afterward purchased by a guy from Belfast, who then began to build homes there, bright brick homes with gleaming roofs, unlike the tiny brown homes they had been using. The Devines, the Waters, the Dunns, little Keogh the cripple, and she and her siblings used to play together in that field with the other kids from the avenue. Little Keogh typically used to keep nix and call out when he spotted her father approaching, even though her father frequently used his blackthorn stick to chase them out of the field.