Emotional Paralysis In Eveline

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Recommended: Adolescence psychosocial development essay

The characters we see in the stories of adolescence are more affected by the general paralysis. What these stories tend to depict are the ways in which paralysis develops among the characters. An emotional paralysis is seen in “Eveline,” as the main character finds herself unable, even at the very instant of her escape, to board the ship that would have taken her to Buenos Aires with her fiancé. Instead, she decides to return to a miserable life as a daughter and servant to an abusive father she fears. “She set her white face to him, passive, like a helpless animal. Her eyes gave him no sign of love or farewell or recognition” (34). The well-traveled and experienced fiancé, Frank, an Irish sailor, represents for Eveline the romantic possibilities that dreams of Araby held for the young boy in the earlier story, but this trapped Dubliner finds herself unable to move toward the promised freedom offered to her. Another tale of entrapment, “The Boarding House,” reveals the entrapment of Bob Doran into an almost certainly unhappy marriage forced by Mrs. Mooney and her quietly colluding...

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