Eveline

In James Joyce, Eveline, the story is about Eveline who has had a rough and a hard life growing up. Throughout the story Eveline “has consented to go away, to leave her home” (4). She finally meets Frank who is her lover and he is suppose to be taking her away to marry him and "to live with him in Buenos Ayres" (6). However when she meets him at the station and they are set to board the ship, Eveline suddenly decides she cannot go with Frank, because "[h]e was drowning her into them: he would drown her" (7). But Eveline's rejection of Frank is not just a rejection of love, but also a rejection of a new life abroad and a rejection to escape from her hard life at home. By not moving into the east with Frank, Eveline gives up escape, life, and love for the past, duty, and a promise.

From the story's opening, she is passive and tired (4) and remembers old neighbors like "the Waters" who have since escaped east "to England" (4). She looks forward to "going to go away like the others, to leave her home" (4). She admits she will not be missed at her job (4) and at nineteen, without the former protection of her older brothers; she is beginning to feel "herself in danger of her father's violence" (5). Her father takes what little money she earns and she is in charge of her two younger siblings as well (5). The sound of a street organ playing an Italian tune is both a call to her from the East across the water and maybe a reminder of her mother's death. She cannot end up like her mother, "living a life of commonplace sacrifices closing in final craziness" and her only recourse is to "escape" with Frank; "He would save her" (5) if she goes with him east across the seas. When she fails to go with Frank, Eveline gives in to the expectations of an imprisoning life like her mother's.

Eveline looks forward to “explore another life with Frank" (5) and a new home for her across the seas (4). Compared to re-living her dead mother's life, Eveline has a chance to live her own life and begin a new life with Frank. Even though she can hardly imagine what her new life might be like, Eveline knows it will be unlike the one set out for her by her father. But perhaps it is the