Questions What prevents Eveline from leaving?
Eveline’s reasons for staying • fear of the unknown: new world, country, language, new man, insecurity • she has 2 brothers to care for, doesn’t want to abandon them, doesn’t want to subject them to her father • a vow to her dying mother • she doesn’t know how to be happy, afraid of happiness • slave mentality: she can’t leave, even with door open, can’t be happy • abusive father: still loves him despite his abuse • she fears all men • a sense of duty: as daughter, sister
Questions Is the end of the story open or closed? Has anything changed in Eveline’s life from the beginning?
Questions The end of the story is closed because probably nothing will ever happen to change Eveline’s life/destiny. Nothing has changed because it is impossible for anybody to really change in a city dominated by the basic experience of spiritual paralysis
Questions What are her reasons for staying and her reasons for leaving?
Questions On one hand she wants to leave Dublin because she does not like her job, her family his poor, her father is violent, her mother died and she would be respected in Buenos Aires; On the other hand she wants to stay in Dublin because she is overwhelmed by nostalgia, she remembers some episodes in which her father was kind and the promise that she had done to her mother: to take care of her family. Therefore Eveline is the typical character of James Joyce’s Dubliners; indeed she is a victim of a spiritual and moral paralysis that reigns over Dublin and that prevents the Dubliners from leaving the city.
The setting Dublin, Ireland • early 20th century (World War I) • working class people
The themes Gender roles: women: work & house work, children; Men: work & drink Abuse: verbal and physical Fear of change, growing up, leaving the nest, of men, of love, of the unknown Sense of being trapped, predestined (though she has the key) Duty: to family, to self Symbolism: sunset, dust = paralysis, stagnation, death, yellowing pictures, smells of her house (dusty) Paralysis