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Eveline

In: English and Literature

Submitted By manu88
Words 2020
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James Joyce, “Eveline”, published in 1914 almost a decade ago from our present time, relates the story of a very young woman from Ireland, who is (just over 19), in between the sensitive age of adolescence and maturity. The religion guide and plays an important role in the average Irish people’s life, specially if a person is an unmarried single young woman. That “Irish background” eventually shapes and influences and impacts the future of “Eveline” in a very tragic and dramatic way till the “End” of this story. Eveline, who stands in between the criss-cross roads of making a very important life times’ decision, of choosing between her future married life with a man (Frank) she truly believed she loved, and the family she was obliged to serve, feed, look after and take care of, constantly in spite of all her personal hardships and sacrifices. The “End,” and the related theme of the “End” of this very touching short story by J.Joyce “Eveline” is linked strongly with it’s “Beginning”, which gradually unfolds with Eveline contemplating seriously upon her “Past”, “Present” and the “Coming Future”. Sitting in a very gloomy, dull and dusty room filled with “the odour of dusty cretonne”, worn out curtains, and an old yellowed picture which hung on the wall upon the broken harmonium beside the coloured print of the promises made to Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque.
Eveline’s “Past,” partly consisted of her simple growing up childhood with the neighbouring children of the avenue,-the Devines, the Waters, the Dunns, little Keogh the cripple, her own brothers “Ernest and Harry,” her sisters and all with whom she grew up playing together as a child in that nearby field. Her brother Ernest had passed away, and Harry was away from the home down somewhere in the country, involved in the Church decorating Business. Lately her mother too had passed away and left her

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