Dubliners, Eveline

Eveline

1. CHARACTERS Eveline is the central character in the story, who is a nineteen year-old girl planning to escape her mixed up life by leaving Dublin with her fiancÐ"© to go to Buenos Aires. In the story, her father plays an abusive and cruel man who threatens to beat her and takes all of her money; however Eveline still cares for him and her siblings. *Frank is Eveline's fiancÐ"©, and a sailor, who wants her to run away with him to Buenos Aires. A smaller role in the story is Eveline’s dead mother, who asked Eveline to hold the family together for as long as she possibly could.

2. QUOTE ABOUT EVELINE “Then she would be marriedвЂ"she Eveline. People would treat her with respect then. She would not be treated as her mother had been” (32-33). Eveline is a woman faced with having to make a life-altering decision. This challenge suggests that during this time, Irish woman had many boundaries and restrictions which lead them to ultimate suffering. Eveline’s painful choice about her life also shows self-control and panic. Eveline plans to flee to Argentina, where she hopes to stay away from her father’s violence as well as memoirs of her dead mother. When the narrator says, “People would treat her with respect,” he is suggesting that Eveline thinks about her life as a married woman in Argentina, and that she believes she has a right to be happy too. However, memories brought back the notion of the domesticated woman that she has grown up to be all her life, and while Eveline stood on the dock ready to go aboard on her journey, reality had set in. Her feelings of familiarity, fear, and guilt took over her desire to freedom and self content.

3. PLOT AND SETTING The story begins with Eveline sitting inside of her family’s house remembering her childhood, with some happy memories as well as her father’s violence toward her and her brothers. Throughout the story Eveline reflects upon people she has known who have left Ireland or died. She also thinks about her plans to leave the country with Frank. She remembers meeting Frank and dating him while he visited Dublin on a holiday break, knowing that she does not have her father’s approval on Frank, and has to leave without anyone knowing beforehand. When she was about to board the ship to England, she became wrapped up by fear of the unknown as well as the guilt of leaving her family and breaking her mothers promise. Eveline was unable to board the ship, and at the very last second she let go of Frank’s hand as he boarded it. He called out to her as it was leaving, while she stood on the dock, alone and emotionless.

4. QUOTE ON CENTRAL CONFLICT The central conflict in “Eveline” is her struggle of having to choose. In the story the narrator says, “She had consented to go away, to leave her home. Was that wise? She tried to weigh each side of the question” (32). This passage explains how Eveline is torn between two intense choices. Assumingly, this is Eveline’s only chance to escape from Dublin, and if she chooses to pass it up, she may