30 pages • 1 hour read
James JoyceEveline
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1904A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Role of Women and Female Autonomy
When Joyce wrote Dubliners, women faced highly restrictive gender roles and a lack of individual autonomy. These ideas, however, were being challenged in many countries. Early feminist ideas were posited in Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), and the first wave of feminism in the United States began in 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention, which launched the women’s suffrage movement. In Ireland, many lower-class women worked on farms and in factories through the 19th century, but more women were performing domestic labor exclusively. Eveline has a job, indicating her status as a working-class woman, but she is also required to maintain her household, and her father steals her wages. Faced with this double exploitation, Eveline attempts to secure a brighter future through Frank’s offer of marriage. Eveline’s choice represents the struggle for increasing autonomy and self-determination for women. Many Irish women, married and unmarried, left Ireland before, during, and after the Great Famine and sought new lives in America, Europe, and South America.
In Ireland, women began to take on larger roles in the Irish nationalist movement; for example, Countess Markievicz, who was imprisoned for her role in the 1916 Easter Rising, implored Irish women to take up arms and fight for Irish independence. Alongside political movements, Irish cultural movements arose to save the Irish language and traditions. Women took a prominent role in this arena as many of the goals were related to typically domestic spheres: “the revival of the Irish language, the education of Irish children in the national history and literature, and the use of Irish-made products to strengthen the national economy” (Biletz, Frank A. “Women and Irish-Ireland: The Domestic Nationalism of Mary Butler.” New Hibernia Review/Iris Éireannach Nua, vol. 6, no. 1. University of. St. Thomas, 2002). After 1898, women in Ireland could vote in local elections, and the Gaelic League “accepted women for membership on an equal basis” and “were not restricted to subordinate roles” (Biletz, Frank A. “Women and Irish-Ireland: The Domestic Nationalism of Mary Butler.” New Hibernia Review/Iris Éireannach Nua, vol. 6, no. 1. University of. St. Thomas, 2002).
Despite these changes pulsing through parts of Irish society, many women were limited to the spheres in which they were born. At the end of “Eveline,” this young woman, who faced the possibility of a new life, is frozen and held back by her sense of duty and fear of the unknown. Haunted by cultural and religious impulses to fulfill responsibilities and never waver from duty, Eveline remains, like many women of her time, frozen within the limitations of female gender roles. She stays home and continues the work of not only earning money but caring for her siblings, managing her father, and doing everything else expected in the domestic sphere. Even in her decision to join Frank, she showed limited autonomy, simply “consent[ing]” (21) to go with him; in their final moments on the dock, and as she watches Frank sail away, her autonomy is completely stripped as she prays for God “to direct her, to show her what was her duty” (23). With this, Joyce highlights that women’s autonomy and gender equality are not guaranteed and must be fought for, even during this relatively progressive time.
The Complexities of Love
“Eveline” illustrates differing types and levels of love and the complexities of relationships. The two primary kinds of love represented are familial and romantic, and each carries its own particular shades rather than fitting into the idealized versions often represented in society.
Eveline’s love for Frank is romantic, but she does not define it as such. Her initial desire is to simply have a fellow who likes her, and now she “likes” (22) him. Still, it is the closest she has come to romantic interest, and as the story opens, she has chosen him over her family because he “would give her life, perhaps love, too” (23). The admiration—and possibly love—that Eveline feels for Frank has rapidly developed and is deepened by circumstance. He has a home far away and wants a wife, and she is unhappy in her current life. Somewhat a marriage of convenience, their relationship conveys the complexities of marital love, particularly during this time when women had far less power and autonomy than men. Frank also gains value in Eveline’s eyes when her father forbids them from seeing one another. Eveline claims she has to “meet her lover secretly” (22), and the romantic drama elevates her feelings from “like” to something closer to love. In the end, however, the love she thought she’d feel for Frank and the allure of freedom from her oppressive life in Ireland are not enough to overcome her fear and paralysis.
Familial love also plays a significant role in Eveline’s considerations during these two brief scenes. Sitting against the window, her thoughts begin with fond memories of playing in the nearby field, and the narrative quickly reveals Eveline’s two-sided feelings for her family. Her father, she says, used to “hunt them in out of the field with his blackthorn stick” (20), but Eveline thinks, “Still they seemed to have been rather happy then. Her father was not so bad then; and besides, her mother was alive” (20). Later, Eveline reveals her father’s abuse of her mother and brothers, admitting her fear that he will finally turn his violence on her. Despite her father’s abuse and how hard she works to help the family, Eveline observes, “now that she was about to leave [this home] she did not find it a wholly undesirable life” (21). She also thinks more fondly of her father as she contemplates her letters to him and her brother, noting how he cared for her recently while she was sick and made them all laugh when her mother was alive. Eveline feels a vivid fear of becoming her mother if she stays, which finally helps her leave the house; her memories of her mother are simultaneously tinged with fondness, fear, and a hint of contempt over the way she lived and allowed herself to be treated. Eveline’s love is complex, illustrating the ways that relationships contain a multitude of feelings that are not easily reconciled.
Colonialism and Oppression: English Imperialism and Roman Catholic Influence
Throughout Dubliners, Joyce represents Ireland in a state of paralysis under the influence of colonial control, and imperial themes continue as a thread in his later works. English imperialism is not, however, the only type of colonialism and oppression to harm Ireland in Joyce’s assessment. In “Ireland: Island of Saints and Sages,” Joyce asserts that “[Ireland’s] initiative has been paralysed by the influence and admonitions of the church, while the body has been shackled by peelers, duty officers and soldiers.” (Joyce, James. “Ireland: Island of Saints and Sages.” James Joyce: Occasional, Critical, and Political Writing. Ed. Kevin Barry. Oxford University Press, 2008). The Roman Catholic Church, Joyce believed, was as much an oppressor as England. One such example of this was the condemnation of Charles Stewart Parnell—a famous Irish nationalist, Member of Parliament, and leader of the Home Rule League—by Irish citizens over his affair with a married woman. Despite the progress he made and the influence he held, many politicians and others in the country refused to work with him, and he was unable to secure Irish Home Rule. For Joyce, this illustrated that Ireland was so ruled by Roman Catholic influence that the people would betray their own goals (Home Rule) to condemn a politician for his private sins.
“Eveline” hints at both imperial and religious oppression. One example is the man from Belfast who built houses in the field where she and neighboring children had played. Although vague, the reference to Belfast, a city in the north where Protestants (generally associated with England and the Irish ruling class) made up the majority of the population, alludes to English imperialism, in which the English seized Irish land. Eveline herself is often ruled and oppressed by her father’s domineering threats and abuse, weakening and shackling her as Ireland was weakened and shackled through colonial oppression. Even Frank, as a sailor, represents the presence of English imperialism, as he likely sailed on ships under the Crown’s authority. This connection adds another dimension to Eveline’s dilemma, asking how much would truly change if she ran off with Frank.
The Church also contributes to Eveline’s paralysis at the end of the narrative. It first appears in a seemingly harmless way, revealing its ever-present nature in the lives of devout Catholics. Eveline observes her father’s photo of a priest, his old classmate who now lives in Melbourne, Australia. This photo blends the past and future, showing how Catholicism extends back in the family line and hinting at the ways imperialism follows Irish emigres in their new lands. Later, on the docks, the Church reasserts psychological dominance over Eveline, who was planning to disobey her father. With the boat and the unknown future directly in front of her, Eveline “felt her cheek pale and cold and out of a maze of distress, she prayed to God to direct her, to show her what was her duty” (23). She continues to move her lips “in silent fervent prayer” (23). While Eveline doesn’t have a religious epiphany, her faith stalls her enough that she loses the chance at something different. In the end, religious and cultural sense of duty merge with Eveline’s fear, halting her escape and keeping her, like the Ireland of Joyce’s imagination, paralyzed.
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