James Joyce Dubliners Evenline

One of the Dubliners stories, “Eveline” is a devastating tale about a woman’s resistance to change. The title character acts as if she is trapped in the past, even though she has a tremendous and promising opportunity to embrace a new life filled with freedom and excitement. Eveline grapples with the question of whether to stay in Dublin or leave with her lover, and her indecision results in the decision being made for her—Eveline remains powerless. A feminist criticism approach to “Eveline” shows how the title character responds ambivalently to patriarchal social structures and gender norms.
Eveline is a young woman, whose mother has died, and whose father has since become violent; “she sometimes felt herself in danger of her father's violence,” (Joyce 2). Although Eveline claims her father “was not so bad” when her mother was still alive (1), she contradicts herself later, saying, “she would not be treated as her mother had been,” (Joyce 2). Eveline is about to perpetuate the cycle of domestic violence by refusing to go on the boat with Frank.
The entire short story is a snapshot of Eveline’s interior world, her vacillations between fulfilling her social role as an Irish woman versus her desire for change. Eveline even seems to blame her mother, using a promise she had made as an excuse to remain in Ireland. Yet the promise Eveline made was simply “to keep the home together as long as she could,” (Joyce 5). Her mother never asked her to sacrifice her happiness for no reason. Eveline does know this on some level, as she suddenly states, “Why should she be unhappy? She had a right to happiness,” (Joyce 5). Her momentary bout of illumination quickly fades, though, as Eveline falls pray to the patriarchal norms that govern her culture. Eveline has so completely internalized those patriarchal norms that she cannot envision a better life for herself.
Moreover, Eveline’s inability to make a decision epitomizes her lack of political power. As a female, she has no power in the community. She needs to marry, to have a man to rescue or “save her,” as she puts it (Joyce 5). It is not as if Eveline can create her own life. Even if Frank is someone who she describes as being “very kind, manly, open-hearted,” he is still a man and she sees herself in the role as wife, as follower and not leader (Joyce 2). When she thinks about leaving, it is not necessarily to go forward, but merely to “escape,” (Joyce 5).
Eveline symbolizes the powerless of women in Irish society. She does not make a decision at all, and thus conscripts herself to a life of sorrow and despair. Eveline sabotages what could be her only chance of happiness and liberation, and given her appearance as a “helpless animal” at the end of the story, she is unlikely to be motivated to change at all after Frank leaves (Joyce 6). In fact, the language Joyce uses to describe Eveline directly speaks to the author’s own feminist argument. Eveline is “passive,” because she has been placed in a passive role her entire life. Her only role model was an equally as passive mother. Irish society lacks the social structures or institutions that can help women like Eveline to empower themselves and move away from abusive households like hers. Even her prayer is a sign of weakness, as she turns her decision making power over to a male god, the patriarchal god of a patriarchal culture.
Eveline represents all women in Ireland during Joyce’s time: women who were on the brink of forging a new path but many of whom remained stuck in their old ways, using custom, tradition, and family as an excuse. Joyce is not criticizing women for being weak; rather he is showing why women like Eveline fail to change. They fail to change because the society does not provide women with the opportunities they need to forge their own paths. All Eveline has to motivate her to change is a man, and there is no telling whether she would have been happy as Frank’s wife in South America. Thus, Joyce shows how the cycle of patriarchy perpetuates itself in his tragic short story “Eveline.”



Works Cited

Joyce, James. “Eveline.”