Eveline by James Joyce

The choices we make in life will always have an effect on us one way or another in our future. The choices at times can help benefit or in some way destroy of life and our future. Fears of the unknown and change have always found a way of rearing their ugly head and making us second guess ourselves. At times, fear of the unknown is so great that the choice we were supposed to make becomes unthinkable, unbearable, and even unreachable. Not many people can deal with the tension of the fear even if it means eventually having a better life for them or someone else. However, there are people who are strong enough to fight it with everything they have in their body, mind, and sprit. There are people like Eveline who find a decision too difficult to make and end up losing out on a better future.

Eveline is a young lady of 19 (Meyer, 420) who has faced countless challenges in her life. In this short story she faces one of her most difficult choices that has the power to completely change her life. Eveline had the chance to leave her home and start a new life with Frank, someone she really loves. The closer it got to the time for her to leave her old life behind her for a new life, the harder the choice of leaving became for this young lady. At 19 this decision could not have been easy. No young lady at the age of 19 wants to face a decision to leave their father and run off with a gentleman even if it is the best thing for them at the moment. Eveline’s biggest fight for “life and happiness” was right in front of her, however fear stopped her from reaching out and grabbing it. Eveline will to live, was not as strong as she thought it was. She was too trapped up in her life and was truly not ready to give it up. She was worried about e...

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...uld mean he would be alone with no one to take care of him especially with his drinking problem. The guilt of leaving those two children she was babysitting ran through her mind. Who would look after them when she is gone? Would they be better off without her? Those where just some of the questions going through her mind and she was sitting.

Fear is a big deal that people face on a daily base. Eveline fear did not allow her to live the life she had for a new life with Frank. Many things throughout the story showed how suffocated Eveline was and that she wanted to escape her life. However, when it came down for her to make a decision she froze. Eveline fears caught her and she made her decision.

Works Cited

Meyer, Michael. "Eveline." Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature: Reading, Thinking, and Writing. S.l.: Bedford Bks St Martin'S, 2014. 420-23. Print.