The Oppression Of Childhood In Eveline By James Joyce

Great Essays
Eveline demonstrates the outcome of a child having lost many loved ones through death or through them leaving her. This causes her to fear change. In the short story "Eveline" James Joyce reveals that the old field symbolizes Eveline 's premature jump into adulthood, the dusty, monotonous house represents her life in the moment and Frank symbolizes a coming change in Eveline 's life, showing Eveline 's deep-rooted fear of change and unwillingness to accept it.
The field represents Eveline and the death of her childhood resulting to an early adulthood. Eveline speaks of the friends and family from her early life spending every evening playing in the field. The field, “in which they used to play every evening with other people 's children,”
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Eveline and her home both have a dull and uneventful condition. Eveline’s room is described as dusty and with a stench of cretonne. Illustrated by the fact that Eveline 's room needs to be dusted every week, Eveline 's life is repetitious execution of constant tasks. As Eveline looks about her room “reviewing all its familiar objects which she had dusted once a week for so many years” this shows the consistency of her days dispersing into years (Joyce). Linda Rohrer Paige states that when Eveline decides not to leave she rejects Frank and has a "...deafness to the music of life" showing her colorless life that lacks adventutre (Paige). Although Eveline’s life has barely changed since she reached adulthood she describes it as not being a “wholly undesirable life” (Joyce). Unlike Frank, who is full of adventure, unlike her younger self, who was joyful and carefree, Eveline 's life no longer changes. The more Eveline 's life changed, the more sorrow filled her life. Her life is repetitive and bleak: she no longer desires any change in her life. Her desire for happiness is not what makes her decisions: it is her fear of change and pain that keeps her from finding joy. Now that Frank has entered Eveline 's “[t]he opportunity of escape or rather the prospect of a better life [which] suddenly seems to be within reach” life (Benjamin Boysen 161). Whereas Eveline’s home represents …show more content…
While Frank and Eveline spend time together their time is described with more vibrant experiences such as her being “elated” while attending a ballad called The Bohemian Girl, she became “pleasantly confused” as he sang a song about a woman loving a sailor, and she found having a courter as to be an “excitement” when she first started seeing him (Joyce). He tells her of the adventures he has and sings to her. Unlike her father pushing away the Italian musicians Frank brings music back into Eveline’s life. Frank brought a new value to her and renews the joyfulness in her life. This is proved when he plans to take her away to start a new life: “[t]he narrative makes clear that the possible trip with him to Buenos Aires, where he claims to have a house, is a metaphor for a new realm of experience that his love promises to open for Eveline” (Ingersoll). Frank is similar to the window in Eveline’s room: he creates a way to rid her life of staleness in the same way the window helps the mustiness of the room. He is providing her with an opportunity for a new life and happiness. aAs she looks out the window at the new homes she thinks of the future she and Frank can have together “for Eveline, Frank can be only a means of escape” (French 453). This helps prove the idea of Frank being like

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