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MEMORY AS A PROMISE AND COMMITMENT JAMES JOYCE - EVELINE [email protected] Joyce’s first short stories were published in 1914 in a collection called Dubliners, although all the stories in the book were written before 1907. Collectively, they form a realistic and evocative portrait of the lives of ordinary people in Dublin. As Joyce himself explained, the stories are arranged in four groups that correspond to four phases of life: childhood, adolescence (Eveline), maturity and public life. In Dubliners, men and women are equally depicted as victims of their social and economic milieu, but the realistic picture Joyce drew of the situation of his female characters shows that women were even more affected by the narrow confines of a rather male dominant society. Ireland has endured waves of emigration, particularly after 1848. Many left their native land to seek a better life elsewhere. The Irish were second-class citizens within their own nation; Ireland was a British colony, and the Northern Protestants controlled the economy of the country. Catholic families often faced hardship. Alcoholism and abuse, as portrayed in “Eveline” were rampant. As a result, many of the Irish sought to escape. This essay is an attempt to picture Joyce's female Dubliners in their oppressive environment, mainly focusing on Joyce's "Eveline" as an all-encompassing representative of women's suffering in nineteenth-century Dublin. The story is mainly based on the inability to act and to choose. Eveline, the protagonist, reflects in her way of no acting this incapacity. We discover the all story through Eveline's memories (Joyce follows the Modernist model that avoid any chronological model). Eveline seems to feel a lifeless feeling. She dreams in of escaping to Buenos Aires with Frank, a sailor she is in love with. What seduces her doesn’t does not seem to be the man himself, but the possibility of restarting a different life (in a new house and in a new country). During the story, when she is almost ready to leave, she reminds about the promise done to her dead mother, about keeping all the family together. This event makes her completely change her mind: at the end , she decides to stay in her present, devoid of joy. From now, she will live in her world of illusions: the illusion of having obeyed to her mother’s wish, the illusion that her dad is not so brutal and violent as he truly is. Respect to the style, Joyce builds the story using an interior monologue: especially in the first part, the readers can feel the deepness of the protagonist, exploring its thoughts and impressions. The three dimensions of the time past, present and future intertwine together in Eveline's mind, which thinks, dreams ‘’She was about to explore another life with Frank. Frank was very kind, manly, openhearted. She was to go away with him by the night-boat to be his wife and to live with him in Buenos Ayres where he had a home waiting for her’’ (60-63) and reminds with opened eyes. ‘’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. She was tired. Few people passed. The man out of the last house passed on his way home; she heard his footsteps clacking along the concrete pavement and afterwards crunching on the cinder path before the new red houses.’’ (1-7). This quotation talks about the present. ‘’Down far in the avenue she could hear a street organ playing. She knew the air 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.’’ The sound of a street organ reminds her of the night when her mother died and how her father had paid

a street organ player to move off. Eveline sees her mother's life as a life of commonplace sacrifices closing in final craziness, here last words were ‘’Derevaun Seraun’’ which meant the end of pleasures is pain.

Respect to the structure, the text starts with a short introduction, where it is not specified the protagonist’s name. Joyce wants to give complete ly control to Eveline in capturing the reader’s attention and the narrative scene. The text follows with different sequences which are characterized characterised by the emerging of memories and by an unlimited flow of thoughts. In fact, these are the first intents attempts at using of Joyce to use his the famous “stream of consciousness” technique. The stream of consciousness is a literary technique which consists in reproducing the free flow of thoughts, feelings and sensations of characters without comment by the author. Eveline's memories (the violent father, the brothers, the mother’s disappearance, the difficult home’s life) are provoked from her domestic’s atmosphere, through the dusty objects and furniture she has all around. The story's oscillation continues between memories and reflection: the past is imposed to the present, the intent to remove the present instant is done by Eveline's mind when working in the store or doing her domestic duties. The final part is shorter and quicker. It contains the main central message of the text. The gate, when Frank goes away from, symbolizes symbolises the Eveline's existential closure, prisoner of herself. A significant theme in all the stories is the feeling of paralysis that many of the characters experience as a result of being tied to antiquated and limited cultural and social traditions. This theme is also reflected in their relationships, in which free expression is inhibited by repressive moral codes repressive moral codes inhibit free expression. Joyce himself once defined Dublin as “the centre of paralysis”. The protagonist barely moves throughout the tale. The verbs which describe her are often verbs of inaction, for example “sat” in the first paragraph. Verbs are also deliberately presented in the passive form: “Her head was leaned.” This stress on inaction or paralysis culminates with the visual description of Eveline frozen, “passive, like a helpless animal”. (130). The description in each story is realistic and extremely concise, with an abundance of external details, even the most unpleasant and depressing one. The use of realism is mixed with symbolism since external details features generally have a deeper meaning. In fact, Joyce thought his function was to take the reader beyond the usual aspects of life and he employed a peculiar technique to reach his purpose, the “epiphany”. The first epiphany, most certainly secular, occurs when Eveline is jolted to action at the remembrance of her mother repeating the nonsensical phrase, “Derevaun Seraun”. As Eveline prepares to depart, she experiences another epiphany. “A bell clanged upon her heart”. The vision is of drowning . Another moment of epiphany comes at the end of the story, when Eveline stands at the station and waits for the boat. We can Can we read the inner fight in her mind – escape or not?

40% of your essay is the result of plagiarism.

Bibliography Spiazzi Marina, Tavella Marina, Layton Margaret- Compact performer James Joyce – Dubliners...