Analyse af James Joyces novelle 'Eveline'

Eveline, a 19-year-old girl, sits at the window in her home looking at what is going on in the street, meanwhile she thinks about her childhood; how she and all the other children used to play in the field. She remembers that her father used to hunt them with a blackthorn stick when they were playing in the field. Anyway she and her family had been quite happy back then, because her mother was still alive and her father was not so bad yet. But that is a long time ago; now her mother is dead. Eveline thinks about the people who have left and moved away, and that she is now going to be one of them. She looks around her room – thinking she is going to leave all this. She begins to wonder if it is such a good idea to leave and what the pro and cons are of staying or leaving.

She dreams about not being treated like her mother had been. Eveline is sometimes afraid of her father because he is violent and she has no one to protect her, because Ernest, her brother, and mother is dead, and her other brother is never home. After her mother past away, Eveline kept the house together and took care of the households, which was hard work. But now Eveline is going away with Frank. They are going to Buenos Ayres and Eveline is going to be Frank’s wife. Eveline has written two letters: one to her father and one to Harry, her brother. Before Eveline leaves to go and meet Frank, she thinks about a promise she gave to her mother that she would keep the home together for as long as she could. She stands at the station in North Wale together with Frank, waiting to get on board. But Eveline regrets and she does not go with Frank, she stays.