“Eveline’s Visitant” by Mary Elizabeth Braddon and “The Dead” by James Joyce are both short stories that show strong examples of a “haunting”. A haunting is something or someone from a past time that reoccurs in appearance or in thought, usually bad or regrettable. Although both stories represent a haunting throughout the story, each author efficiently portrays two separate types of a haunting: one being a ghost, and one being a past. Braddon’s short story “Eveline’s Visitant” tells a tale of a young man in France named Hector. Hector strikes his cousin, Andre de Brissac, across his beautiful and adorned face. With rage and anger, Andre lies on the floor near to death, and says to Hector, “It is my will to haunt you when I am dead.” (Braddon).
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Hector’s new life is “pure and perfect happiness”, almost believing that it is all but a dream. After being married for three months, Eveline starts to see a young and handsome man every day in the park and sometimes in the woods wearing fancy but old time clothing. (Braddon). The man is silent, and when she looks away and back again, he is gone. This man in the story is the ghost representing a haunting for revenge. The ghost is Hector’s cousin Andre, who kept his word to come back for retribution after his death. Eveline tells Hector about the suspicious man and changes start to happen within Eveline. She started to lose weight, look sickly, and feel melancholy. She no longer had a “bright and sunny” spirit. “Hector,” she cried, “I see him every day; and it is that which is killing me.” (Braddon). Andre’s revenge on Hector, is taking away the one good thing in his life, a woman that loves him. Eveline tells Hector that she stills sees the man every day and that it is him that is making her feel this way. Hector thinks she is going mad. The physician comes and tells Hector that he believes what she is saying. After she gives …show more content…
One minute Gabriel is leaving the party he attends every year to go home and have fun with his wife. Next thing we read, Gabriel is so far into his thoughts and opinions on life and how it should be lived. He comes to the realization that every one that is even alive, is basically already dead because they are bound to die eventually. He believes that Michael Furey lived a more meaningful life than he did since Michael loved someone so strongly that he died for them. He thinks about life and it’s meaning. “One by one, they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.”
Hector’s new life is “pure and perfect happiness”, almost believing that it is all but a dream. After being married for three months, Eveline starts to see a young and handsome man every day in the park and sometimes in the woods wearing fancy but old time clothing. (Braddon). The man is silent, and when she looks away and back again, he is gone. This man in the story is the ghost representing a haunting for revenge. The ghost is Hector’s cousin Andre, who kept his word to come back for retribution after his death. Eveline tells Hector about the suspicious man and changes start to happen within Eveline. She started to lose weight, look sickly, and feel melancholy. She no longer had a “bright and sunny” spirit. “Hector,” she cried, “I see him every day; and it is that which is killing me.” (Braddon). Andre’s revenge on Hector, is taking away the one good thing in his life, a woman that loves him. Eveline tells Hector that she stills sees the man every day and that it is him that is making her feel this way. Hector thinks she is going mad. The physician comes and tells Hector that he believes what she is saying. After she gives …show more content…
One minute Gabriel is leaving the party he attends every year to go home and have fun with his wife. Next thing we read, Gabriel is so far into his thoughts and opinions on life and how it should be lived. He comes to the realization that every one that is even alive, is basically already dead because they are bound to die eventually. He believes that Michael Furey lived a more meaningful life than he did since Michael loved someone so strongly that he died for them. He thinks about life and it’s meaning. “One by one, they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.”