Eveline By James Joyce

In the story entitled “Eveline” by James Joyce, we see a young girl of nineteen who experienced great sorrows that has burdened her with care of her younger siblings and father, who mistreats her, after the death of her mother. "Eveline" is the story of a young teenager who is on the borderline between adolescence and maturity facing a dilemma where she has to choose between living with her father and her brothers or escaping with her lover Frank, a sailor which she has been courting for some time.
She has a lover, Frank and she seems to love him but on the other hand she acts as if she doesn’t have him. He promises her to give a happy life. But it isn’t easy to make a new life, especially for a girl like Eveline. Because when her mother died, Eveline promised her to take care of her brothers. So she feels that she has to fulfill her duty. When she meets Frank at the station and they are set to board the ship, Eveline suddenly decides she cannot go with him, because "he would drown her in all the seas of the world" (6). But Eveline's rejection of Frank is not just a rejection of love, but also a rejection of a new life abroad and an escape from her hard life at home. And water, as the practical method of escape, as well as a symbol of emotional vitality, functions in a way to show all that Eveline loses through her fear and lack of courage. By not plunging into those "All seas of the world that tumbled about her heart" (6), Eveline forsakes escape, life; and love for the past, duty and death.
Basically the story is about Eveline’s thoughts about her past and the future and how these thoughts determine the decision she eventually makes. The author devotes a lot of space to the girl’s thoughts, which freely flow from the past to the present, mixing with future hopes and reflections on the present. The sudden revelation, here, is : Eveline would like to run away and leave her past behind but she is too linked to her past. She finds herself paralyzed and she is...