Eveline: Paralyzed by Fear
In his book of short fiction, Dubliners, Joyce brings all his Dublin citizens/characters to paralysis in some form. Eveline's fearful lack of will is her paralysis. Examples of her lack of will in come in four forms. Her lack of will finds comfort in dust. This lack of will won't let the beatings of her father stop. Her mother's voice rising from the dead also deadens her lack of will. And finally, her false dreams of change damage her will for freedom.
Eveline enjoys sitting at the window and sniffing dust. She finds solace in the activity. "She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue. Her head was leaned against the window curtains and in her nostrils was the odour of dusty cretonne.
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"...but the trouble was to get any money from her father. He said she used to squander the money, that she had no head, that he wasn't going to give her his hard-earned money to throw about the streets, and much more, for he was usually fairly bad of a Saturday night" (330). Her father was the one squandering money on his Saturday nights. She spent money on food for the family. "Then she had to rush out as quickly as she could and do her marketing, holding her black leather purse tightly in her hand..." (330). Eveline is in so much fear of losing the money she worked so hard to receive from her …show more content…
"Strange that it should come that very night to remind her of the promise to her mother, her promise to keep the home together as long as she could" (330-331). The key words to the promise are "as long as she could". Most people would have left by now. Can't do it anymore! I held on as long as I could! Nowhere in that statement does it say "forever and ever". However, the promise might as well be forever for Eveline. Her paralytic mind keeps the promise for good. Her haunting mother's voice puts fear into Eveline's heart.
"Of course she had to work hard both in the house and at business" (329). Not only does she have a job, but Eveline works hard to keep the family and the house together. She is the glue that keeps the family stuck. "It was hard work-a hard life-but now that she was about to leave it she did not find to a wholly undesirable life" (330). She knows her life is hard, yet a promise of family duty and keeps her in her miserable
The author illustrates the “dim, rundown apartment complex,” she walks in, hand and hand with her girlfriend. Using the terms “dim,” and “rundown” portrays the apartment complex as an unsafe, unclean environment; such an environment augments the violence the author anticipates. Continuing to develop a perilous backdrop for the narrative, the author describes the night sky “as the perfect glow that surrounded [them] moments before faded into dark blues and blacks, silently watching.” Descriptions of the dark, watching sky expand upon the eerie setting of the apartment complex by using personification to give the sky a looming, ominous quality. Such a foreboding sky, as well as the dingy apartment complex portrayed by the author, amplify the narrator’s fear of violence due to her sexuality and drive her terror throughout the climax of the
Filban said the home had a yard that was overgrown. “The trees and bushes were overgrown, and the house was dark,” Filban said. “And the windows were covered.” She and her sister slept in the front bedroom of the house. She remembers the bedroom having a large, floor-to-ceiling window. She said you could look out and see the wra...
The human mind is a fragile thing. It can be both strengthen and broken down easily. Actions and even words can be the thing to kill a person mentally. Physically harming or locking away a person can lead to mental and bodily withdrawal. Harming a person with words can leave lasting effects and always stay within a person's psyche. Oppressing and locking away a person's true nature or desires can cause someone to act in way that he or she has never behaved before. When done by a loved one, it can affect a person even more. In William Faulkner's “A Rose for Emily” and Susan Glaspell's “Trifles”, two different women are kept mentally and physically locked away by a person who is supposed to love and protect them. Though Emily and Mrs. Wright had different situations, each one mentally broke. Both women took all they could before they decided that they had had enough and took matters into their own hand.
Ever since she has been entrapped in her room, the narrator’s vivid imagination has crafted fictional explanations for the presence of inconsistencies in the wallpaper. She explains them by saying “The front pattern does move! And no wonder! The woman behind shakes it” (Gilman 9). In the story, the narrator explains the woman mentioned creeps in and about the old house she and her husband reside in. Venturing towards the conclusion, the narrator becomes hysterical when thinking about the wallpaper, explaining to her husband’s sister Jennie how she would very much like to tear the wallpaper down. Jennie offers to do it herself, but the narrator is persistent in her desire-”But I am here, and nobody touches that paper but me-not ALIVE”(Gilman 10)! The narrator has realized the apex of her mental instability as the story
It is very interesting on how the narrator adds more to the story. Since the reader is only able to see what is the narrator feeling or thinking at the moment. We can’t see how other characters might be reacting around her, because it is only first person point of view. However, the narrator does begin to make the reader question what is really happening to her. All though she loves her bedroom, at some point in the story, the narrator begins to describe how much she hates the yellow wallpaper in her bedroom. Her hate towards the yellow wallpaper becomes an obsession, in which she describes that she “sees” a woman trapped in the wallpaper desperate to escape out of it. “…I kept still and watched the moonlight on that undulating wallpaper till I felt creepy. The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out.”-(652). With the narrator taking medication, sleeping in separate rooms from her husband, and now having illusions of a woman being trapped in the wallpaper. The reader can analyze that the narrator is most likely going through a depression or some type of mental
I was most impressed by David’s strength, determination and bravery to outlast his mother’s beatings throughout the book. For instance, when his mother tried to burn him on the stove, Dave was determined not to let her do this to him. What he decided to do to try and stop her was to keep her
It is obvious that Eveline is held accountable due to cultural expectations. Though, Eveline had the right mindset she just didn’t have the guzzlers to do so. Her father is an unreliable man. Her father cares so much about alcohol he is oblivious that he is pulling his kids away from him. Sadly, he seems to always find a way to her heart that leaves room for sympathy and fear when she engages in living for the better. Eveline only wanted one thing was to see her family but her father would not allow it. This leaves Eveline to suffocating thoughts she doesn’t cope with well. She will drive out thoughts that make her life distraught. Only strength she can be relied on is her imagination of escape. Eveline had been outcast as the weaker sex just like other women. Males role always were known as the aggressive type. During those time of years it was right for a man to be the head, the protector, and provider. Women tend to be the home overseers and they had no option but to cater to their husbands, provide food, stability, and care. In this time of gender expectation, women had no say so. They were the last resort for anything. As stated in her story, “This indifference or concealed hostility of
Many people are familiar with the “light bulb moment”- the moment when one suddenly understands and everything becomes clearer. From a more technical and literary standpoint, that moment could be referred to as an epiphany. James Joyce, in his manuscript of Stephen Hero, defines an epiphany as “a sudden spiritual manifestation.” In addition, Joyce used epiphanies liberally throughout his writing of Dubliners. The epiphanies, which can be found in each short story, they are essential in shaping Joyce’s stories. Because epiphanies were used so often throughout Dubliners, their effects on the protagonists can be compared and contrasted between stories. One such is example is “The Dead” and “A Painful Case.” Though the epiphanies experienced
Even when she was just a baby, "her infant's eyes had been caught by the glimmering of the gold embroidery about the letter" (Hawthorne 67). From birth, Pearl seemed to be attracted to the scarlet letter "A" that clung to her mother's chest. In one specific incident when Pearl was a baby she reached up smiling to touch the scarlet letter on Hester's dress as she stooped over her cradle. This gesture by the baby mortified Hester because of Pearl's innocent recognition of the underl...
Throughout her time in the room she notices the wallpaper “a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight” (514). After a couple of days in her opinion the wallpaper is starting to change. She sees “a women stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern” (518). In the daytime she sees the women outside the house “I see her in that long shaded lane, creeping up and down. I see her in those dark grapes arbors, creeping all around the garden“(521). The places where the women is creeping is where the narrator can’t go so she he creeps in the daytime “I always lock the door when I creep by daylight” (520).
While the Narrator is denied contact and forced to remain in the bedroom due to her husband’s insistence she begins to create a world within the hideous yellow wallpaper that covers the walls. She sees patterns and shapes, such as trapped creeping women, in the wallpaper. In the beginning of the short story, it is clear that the narrator desires social interaction and even believes that it would improve her mental condition.
The definition of hawala is “money transfer without money movement” (Jost and Sandhu, 2000). A key element that makes a hawala, different from other money remittance systems, is that it is based on trust. Each entity involved with the transactions trusts one another. Hawala relies on the use of connections like family relationships or affiliations (Jost and Sandhu, 2000). ...
In the majority of the story Eveline "sat at the window," (512) which parallels with her paralysis because she does not move. Eveline "was going to go away like the others" (512) because she was one of the only people left in Dublin from her childhood. However, Eveline doesn't go since she is trapped in her setting. Almost nothing in Eveline's setting ever changes throughout her life. The significance of Eveline looking around the room "reviewing all its familiar objects" (512) is that she "never dreamed of being divided" from them. All around her Eveline "had those she had know all her life about her" (512). Eveline is a product of her environment. The reader can see how the setting never changes, Eveline's life molds to it. This explains the reason for her not going away and starting a much happier life.
In the short story “Eveline “ by James Joyce, Eveline, the protagonist is given the opportunity to escape from her hard unendurable life at home and live a life of true happiness at Buenos Ayres with Frank, her lover. Throughout the story, Eveline is faced with a few good memories of her past from her childhood and her mother, but she also faces the horrible flashbacks of her mother’s illness and her father’s violence. In the end, she does not leave with Frank, Eveline’s indecisiveness and the burden of her family’s duties makes her stay.