1 Eveline, a literary commentary PDF

Preview

Summary

Comentario literario sobre "Eveline" una de las narrativas estudiadas en la clase de English Literature 1: 20th Century Voices....

Description

“Eveline”: A Literary Commentary “Eveline”, is the fourth title of one of the fifteen short stories contained in the book Dubliners, written in the early nineteen hundreds, in between Italy and Ireland, by James Joyce (Dublin, 1882-1941), and published in 1914. Dubliners is considered modernist fiction, and James Joyce was considered a member of the modernist literary movement, which is a movement characterized by a very self-conscious break with traditional ways of writing, in both poetry and prose fiction. Modernists experimented with literary form and expression. 1 The stories take place in different parts of the city of Dublin at the beginning of the XX Century. The extract from the fourth story,“Eveline”, focuses on the protagonist, Eveline, a 19-year-old Irish girl, and her sombre thoughts, while at the Dublin Port; about to embark with her fiancé to Buenos Aires when she has an epiphany and, at the last second, decides to stay on land, leaving Frank and her new life. The themes of the fragment deal with Eveline’s paralysis as she confronts her destiny, as we read in line 12 “Her hands clutched the iron in frenzy”, meaning that she had no intention of moving, hence, the paralysis. She cannot take action, but she can fight to remain in the same place. Helplessness, as we read in line 16 “she set her white face to him, passive, like a helpless animal”, as Frank calls out to her and she’s unable to respond. Another theme introduced is the role of women in society, and the responsibilities to the family, as Eveline struggles with her own feelings having to choose between her dead mother and family and the possibility of finding happiness with Frank in a new country. More themes found in the extract are the societies’ catholic values, such as in line 2 of the extract “she prayed to God to direct her”, and in line 6 we read “she kept moving her lips in silent fervent prayer”, the author implies how integrated religion is in everyday people’s lives. Escapism and exoticness, as we see in line 4, “steaming towards Buenos Aires”, the yearning to leave for a, no doubt, better future. These issues are prevalent in the rest of the Dubliners as well, and remain the book’s main themes. More so, Eveline illustrates perfectly the passivity and absence of courage to better one’s own situation. The language employed in the extract is common to the whole work, free direct speech, meaning, a direct and forward language style and a varied register that fits the age, social class and the characters portrayed, in this case, of Eveline. In “Eveline” the narrative mode is a narrated monologue, which means that the character's thoughts are reproduced 'directly' and """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" 1

Childs, Peter (2008). Modernism. Routledge. p. 4. ISBN 0415415462.

in a way that one would imagine the character to think. Although the narrator continues to talk of the character in the third person and told from the character’s point of view using the free-indirect discharge, allowing the narrator to channel the character’s thoughts and emotions. Joyce uses literary devices to conjure up an obscure, sad and sterile reality to accompany Eveline’s despair and dilemma and to create a much more dramatic mood. Words such as “pale”, “cold”, “maze”, “distress” and “mournful” are examples of this dramatic extract. Other literary devices such as metaphors can also be found; “a bell clanged to her heart” and “he would drown her” are signs that Eveline is unable to mentally move forward as she is about to board the ship and how Frank’s world would become her own world, eventually. Additionally, we can find a simile when in the second to last line Joyce writes; “She set her white face to him, passive, like a helpless animal”. This extract is a very relevant part of the story since the readers witness the epiphany or turning point in Eveline’s life. The catholic values of responsibility and family are much stronger in her than the idea of, a perhaps, better life, and that’s when Eveline decides to stay on land and not go with Frank to Buenos Aires. It’s the climax of the whole story, the final point of Eveline’s confusion and the first move she makes at attempting to change her situation. James Joyce illustrates through this story the passivity he feels is so common in his fellow Irish people. This is a simple story of a young woman who is caught in a conflict; should she stay in her depressing life full of responsibilities and duties or should she abandon everything she knows for the promise of a new unknown life with an unknown man? It also typifies the life many Dubliners were undergoing; boring, uninspiring and hard. Paralysed, unable to move or progress is the common thread to most of the stories in this book. The yearning for past and better times, nostalgia, is another recurring theme that ties the stories together. “Eveline” was written by what seemed a very detached and distant narrator, distant in space but also distant in time. This type of narration adds to the static quality of the story and the trancelike lives the Dubliners had. The author does a wonderful job of creating the setting, the mood and the scene through stylistic devices such as; the realistic description of places, the representation of the characters from the inside and the use of time in an internal and subjective way....