EVELINE (KEY CONTEXT, SYMBOLS, MODERNIST TECHNQIUES)

Question 1

What is the short story ‘Eveline’ about?

Answer 1

• About a young girl who dreams of escaping her opressive life.
• She plans to leave with her lover, Frank, to Buenos Aires.
• However, she is torn between freedom and duty (father/promises to dying mother)
• At the docks, fear and nostalgia paralyse her.

Question 2

Which thematic section/ cluster does ‘Eveline’ belong to in the collection?

Answer 2

• Adolecence cluster.
• (Explores the paralysis that prevents the transition from youth and adulthood)

Question 3

Key symbols in ‘Eveline’?

Answer 3

1. Dust
2. The sea
3. Buenos Aires
4. Priest photograph
5. Print of the promises made to ‘Blessed Marget Mary Alacoque”

Question 4

What narrative form is ‘Eveline’ written in? and what is the significance of this?

Answer 4

1. 3rd-person (limited) narration. (closely follows her thoughts, feelings, emotions)
2. Stream of conciousness(blurs past and present)
   * Effect= Intimate, modernist psychological realism, unrealiable perspective, focuses on internal rather than external action (paralysis)

3rd person limited= the narrator only knows the thoughts and feelings of one character.

Question 5

Key modernist features used in Eveline?

Answer 5

1. (Lack of) Epiphantic moment.
2. Stream of conciousness and internal monologue (blends memories with present anxieties)
3. Anti-climatic ending (subversive)

Question 6

What does the ‘odour of the dusty cretonne. She was tired’ symbolise?

Answer 6

• Profound, pervasive stagnation of Eveline’s life that has penetrated every aspect of her life.
• Symbolism= Her environment/mind/spirit have grown stagnant/paralysed.

Question 7

What does the sea represent in Eveline? (‘All of the sea’s of the world tumbled about her heart..he would drown her.)

Answer 7

• The vast, unpredicatable, fearful nature of the unknown.
• The potential volatility of Frank.
• Joyce’s ambivalence toward escape is reflected in the sea’s duality.

Question 8

What does the Print of the promises made to ‘Blessed Marget Mary Alacoque” symbolise?

Answer 8

• The lingering influence of Catholic doctrine, which preaches duty over personal desire.
• Highlights theme of female martyrdom

Question 9

What does “Buenos Aires” symbolise in Eveline?

Answer 9

• A world of freedom, possibilities and emancipation (utopia) from her famility and a stagnant Dublin.
• Uncertainty and danger

Question 10

Key cultural/ intertexual references.

Answer 10

• Margret Mary Alocque- Catholic Nun associated with devotion, and promises.
• Bohemian Girl- opera about a noble girl abducted by gypsies, later falling in love with a man of low status. (romanticised escape)
• The Straits of Magellan= historically dangerous waters (adventrous)
• The “terrible Patagonians” (a myth about giants in South America) adds an almost fairy-tale quality to his stories

Question 11

Characterisation of Frank?

Answer 11

• Romanticised figure of freedom/ stability.
• Ambiguity- does he offer genuine love or another source of control.

Question 12

Characterisation of Eveline’s father

Answer 12

• Authoritarian and abusive (Physically, emotionally and financially)
• Represents patriarchal influences on 20th centuary women, societal expectations.

Question 13

Characterisation of Eveline’s mother?

Answer 13

• Symbolises generational trauma/ suffering.
• Cautionary tale of pioritising duty over personal freedom.
• Dying words “Derevaun Seraun” (end of pleasure is pain- Gaelic)

Question 14

Eveline characterisation?

Answer 14

• Torn between past and future/ duty and freedom.
• Symbolises the broader (psychological) paralysis of Irish society.
• Her final decision reflects Joyce’s bleak view on personal agency.