Key Facts about Eveline
- Full Title: Eveline
- When Written: Summer of 1904
- Where Written: Unknown, but not Dublin. Somewhere in Croatia or Italy – Joyce moved around a lot during this period.
- When Published: Originally published in the Irish Homestead on September 10th, 1904, later revised and published in Dubliners in 1914.
- Literary Period: Modernism
- Genre: Short Fiction
- Setting: 20th Century Dublin
- Climax: Eveline contemplates running away to Argentina with her lover, Frank, but at the last minute she is paralyzed by fear and watches Frank board the ship without her
- Point of View: Told in third-person limited (the narrator is separate from the protagonist but knows her thoughts), and Joyce employs the technique of “free indirect discourse”
Eveline
- Describe Eveline’s home life.
- How does she expect her new life to be different?
- Is Buenos Aires a symbol?
- List specific references to dust. What is the significance of the dust image?
- What is Eveline’s father like? Compare him to Mansfield’s late colonel or to O’Casey’s Capt. Boyle.
- What was her mother like? What happened to her? Does Eveline identify with her mother in any way?
- What do you think her mother meant by her repeating “the end of pleasure is pain”?
- What does her father mean when he tells her, “I know these sailor chaps”? What possible reasons would he have for trying to break up her romance with Frank?
- What type of person is Frank? What does she actually know about him?
- Has Eveline romanticized Frank in any way? Is her father’s objection of him perhaps justified?
- What is Eveline’s duty to her father? What promise did she make to her dying mother?
- What is her duty to herself? Does she really believe she has “a right to happiness”? Why or why not?
- How does Eveline feel about leaving her brother, Harry?
- In what ways is Eveline “like a helpless animal”? What is she afraid of?
- Why do you think her eyes give Frank “no sign of love or farewell or recognition”?
- Do you think Eveline made the right decision? Why or why not?
- Read the notes on the musical allusion in the story.
- In an essay of 1,000 to 1,500 words, give a feminist interpretation of the story.
- Read the notes on the musical allusion in the story (The Lass Who Loves a Soldier), as well as the lyrics to the song; then discuss how it contributes to a contrast between Frank and Eveline’s father.