Dubliners: Eveline

Passage:"He rushed beyond the barrier and called her to follow. He was shouted at to go on but he still called to her. She set her white face to him, passive, like a helpless animal. Her eyes gave him no sign of love or farewell or recognition. "


Within Dubliners, the story Eveline is not only the first short story with a female protagonist, but also a protagonist with a name: Eveline. The passage above encompasses everything Eveline is trying to get at throughout the story. At the start of the story, Eveline is a myopic, listless, individual leaning on a window, an on going motif throughout Dubliners, reminiscing in the past; which happens to be pre-British oppression, or "before the new red houses" (pg. 25). Eveline reminisces over the past, dreams about the future, and when given the opportunity to escape the present moment, she holds back. By remaining in the present- remaining in Ireland- she is dehumanized, "like a helpless animal". The dehumanization of Eveline is similar to the dehumanization of the main protagonist in Araby, who, at the end of the story "saw myself as a creature".

Though the end of Eveline is powerful, Joyce contradicts the climax, with a docile tone. Eveline undergoes an epiphany, which is why she's ostentatious enough to flee her father, a possible symbol of Ireland. When she is ready to board the ship with Frank, who is conveyed to the reader as a strong, brave, hero, she gives up. A rising climax is balked by the protagonist's incapability to leave her home, Ireland. Joyce describes, "She set her white face to him; passive, like a helpless animal", as oppose to being blunt, he eases the protagonist's defeat with a more soft tone; describing her face as, "white" instead of vacuous, or empty. He makes the reader perplexed, and draw their own conclusions, another ongoing literary element used by Joyce, begging the question: if she had the opportunity to leave, why did she succumb to defeat?