Flotsametrics
Home Sweet Home
Indistinguishable, ordinary, suffocating, dull… These are just some of the
characteristics that can be used to describe Eveline’s life. James Joyce’s short story,
“Eveline”, which takes place in an ordinary Dublin town in the early1900’s, depicts a
young girl’s search for happiness, but her internal struggle, with what is familiar to her, is
preventing her from seeking her joy. The physical and emotional setting portrayed in James
Joyce’s “Eveline” plays a key role in the struggle between Eveline wanting to start a new life
and remaining paralyzed in her current life
The black and white picture is a scene on a street, all the houses are together, the
windows are all in a row. This is James Joyce’s Dublin. It is in this dull, dreary Dublin, that
the short story ,“Eveline” takes place. According to a letter that Joyce wrote to his publisher,
he says “I chose Dublin for the setting because that city seemed to me to be the centre of
paralysis”(Joyce 1). The reader can picture the dreary plain impoverished lifestyle of the
people in Dublin at that time. A city stuck in its paralyzed past. Eveline’s life is Dublin,
they are symbols of one another. Dublin has become a piece of Eveline, something that she
wouldn’t be the same without. Eveline isn’t able to leave, because that would mean she is
leaving her home… Leaving Dublin. Eveline would be in a new setting, in a new home and
with new people. According to Joseph Florio, “Eveline is powerless” (1), and isn’t even able
to make a decision on whether she should leave or not. She wouldn’t be able to handle the
transition since she is already so accustomed and so attached to her current setting. In
Dublin, her home, “she had those whom she known all her life” (4).
“She looked round the room, reviewing all of its familiar objects which she dusted once
a week for so many years, wondering where on earth apll
Indistinguishable, ordinary, suffocating, dull… These are just some of the
characteristics that can be used to describe Eveline’s life. James Joyce’s short story,
“Eveline”, which takes place in an ordinary Dublin town in the early1900’s, depicts a
young girl’s search for happiness, but her internal struggle, with what is familiar to her, is
preventing her from seeking her joy. The physical and emotional setting portrayed in James
Joyce’s “Eveline” plays a key role in the struggle between Eveline wanting to start a new life
and remaining paralyzed in her current life
The black and white picture is a scene on a street, all the houses are together, the
windows are all in a row. This is James Joyce’s Dublin. It is in this dull, dreary Dublin, that
the short story ,“Eveline” takes place. According to a letter that Joyce wrote to his publisher,
he says “I chose Dublin for the setting because that city seemed to me to be the centre of
paralysis”(Joyce 1). The reader can picture the dreary plain impoverished lifestyle of the
people in Dublin at that time. A city stuck in its paralyzed past. Eveline’s life is Dublin,
they are symbols of one another. Dublin has become a piece of Eveline, something that she
wouldn’t be the same without. Eveline isn’t able to leave, because that would mean she is
leaving her home… Leaving Dublin. Eveline would be in a new setting, in a new home and
with new people. According to Joseph Florio, “Eveline is powerless” (1), and isn’t even able
to make a decision on whether she should leave or not. She wouldn’t be able to handle the
transition since she is already so accustomed and so attached to her current setting. In
Dublin, her home, “she had those whom she known all her life” (4).
“She looked round the room, reviewing all of its familiar objects which she dusted once
a week for so many years, wondering where on earth apll