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James Joyce’s Eveline
A story that speaks to the human condition
The fourth story, Eveline, in James Joyce’s Dubliners takes a diversion from the previous stories. Not in themes or ideas but in stylistic approach. The protagonist, Eveline, is a young woman and her story is written in the close, or subjective, third person. This means that although we don’t have the unmediated voice of the first person, we are subject to her perspective (point of view) and inner thoughts, and hers alone. In close third person, the narrative may slip into indirect free speech or point of view inflection, which is when it takes on the assumed voice of the character, using their choice of words and rhythm of speech. Typically the narrative will move closer to the character, indirect free speech, and then move out again, back to the voice of the narrator. This is sometimes referred to as changes in psychic distance. For example the sentence,
Then she would be married — she, Eveline.
The dash and the final two words seems to denote a change in voice to that of the main character. The narrative is still using the third person, ‘she,’ but it seems to echo her style and rhythm of voice rather than the narrator’s or author’s.
Eveline is poised to leave her home in Dublin and journey with her fiance, Frank, to Buenos Aires, where Frank has a house, and where they will be married. Despite the privations of her home life, living with her ageing father who is sometimes physically intimidating, she is torn between staying and leaving. Although there doesn’t seem much to keep her in this life of toil and drudgery, she appears ambivalent, uncertain of what her fate should be.
The story opens with her reminiscing on her childhood and playing with her friends, some of whom have already left the neighbourhood or are now dead. The place itself has changed with some of the fields where they played now built upon. It suggests that change is inevitable and it is her turn to embrace it and move to a foreign land with Frank.
However, she feels a responsibility to look after her somewhat disagreeable father. Before her mother died she made her a promise to keep the family together. This promise is anchored and reinforced by a song that was playing outside when she made…
