Literary Analysis Of Eveline

Novelist, Gail Godwin, in her short story, “A Sorrowful Woman,”tells the story of a wife and mother who experiences pressure of societal norms which eventually leads to her demise. The main character is overwhelmed with her life taking care of her husband and child. The husband, who is stereotypically portrayed as perfect and supporting , an important decision of Godwin, copes with his wife’s condition. The mother continues to shut out her family members and withdraw from completing her work as a homemaker. The couple chooses to hire a nanny, who benefits the family by providing care and help. The main is eventually fired and the mother’s condition gets worse. She locks herself in a room and slowly distances herself more from her family. She

While visiting his mom in the hospital, Russell is overcome by the tragic reality of the present, of the ability that life possesses to inflict much cruelty. During his early infrequent visits, he attempts to divert his mother 's senility and return her to the present. Hence, when he sits with her in a hospital, surrounded by the stench of illness, he relates much better to her situation and wonders where his fierce and confident mom vanished. So forth, it is in this whitewashed facility that it dawns on him that in essence, his mom had lost her happiness way before her mind had wandered and it irks him that he had not perceived that. Ironically, his mother, who is sitting in the same environment of doom, is oblivious to her bleak surroundings and is able to return to a place of serenity; her glorious past with wonderful memories. In contrast, Tillie Olsen sets a scene of a mother ironing in a warm and cozy environment with the happy banter of children in the backdrop. Thus, She portrays an image of a loving and prosperous rearing, of offspring. Yet, the opposite holds true and the same kid that is raised in this wonderful environment was not protected in her early years. In fact, Emily did not always have a stable home with parents who were available to her. In addition, the time frame of post depression and war era entwine the two stories. Both occurrences illustrate the harsh times that both

Susan Beth Pfeffer’s coming of age story “Ashes” is a narrative about a girl “Ashes” that has divorced parents. This can make it hard for her to connect to her father, who always is joking around and never seems to be taking Ashes, or anything, serious. Ashes’ father makes promises he can not always keep, and while her father means well, it makes her dream of things he can not or will not achieve. Throughout the beginning of the story you feel as if the mother is the antagonist of the story as she is always mad at the father,seems too “uptight, or that she does not think the father is good for Ashes. Towards the end of the story you feel that the mother is the right one as a result of what the father does. This shows that Ashes’ father doesn’t

Once upon a time, there was a dear little girl called Scarlet who was loved by everyone who looked at her, but most of all by her mother, and there was nothing that she would not have given to the child. On Scarlet’s sixth birthday, her mother suddenly fell ill and soon passed away. Scarlet’s father, being unable to resign and accept the reality, quit his job as a hired herdsman and started hunting in order to distract himself from his grief. He could hardly bear to catch a glimpse of Scarlet’s sight, for she resembled her mother too much. Thus, he neglected his daughter and spent most of his time hunting out in the woods. For this reason, his mother, Scarlet’s grandmother, decided to come and live with them. Grandmother’s permanent stay was

Gail Godwin’s “A Sorrowful Woman” represents the feminist thoughts of a woman oppressed by a male dominated society. In this society crated by Godwin, a woman’s role is as a homemaker, however the main character refuses to accept the role given to her. The woman withdrawals from her family and reality until she finally cannot handle it anymore and kills herself. Through the use of character development, Godwin is effectively able to shine light to how one could oppress a female through the hidden familial problems in what appears to be a happy marriage.

Eveline has begun to question her happiness. "Could she still draw back after all he had done for her?" (Joyce 33) She questions whether it is really better for her to go off with Frank and let him be her savior, but again, she declines. "No! No! No! It was impossible." (Joyce 33) Once again because she is so terrified of that which lies a mystery, she decides to stay with what she knows.

This story represents a human heart in conflict for this poor woman with her father and later a man she starts seeing. She is obviously trouble and lonely growing up with a controlling father. She loves her father or she would have probably found a way to leave and it shows her love for her father when he died she couldn’t accept it and she denied his death until the townspeople forced her to face it.

In Amy Zhang’s, Falling Into Place, Liz Emerson looks up to her father when she is a young girl, and losing him is catastrophic:

The short story eveline gives a young women the chance to explore new things. A new man. A new world. A new self. This young women titled eviline has not experienced the life every little girl hopes. Her mother and protector died when she was a child. And once her mother died she was unable to save herself from the abusive alcoholic she calls dad. She has been given the choice of going to buenos ayres with a new man. After contemplating she made a split second decision of not going. The slight worry help her back.

The narrator showed that he did not care about his father, but his father took care of him. “No one ever thanked him. I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.” (Lines 5-6) The narrator did not care about the labor his dad was going through just to support his family. The narrator did not get along well with his father. “fearing the chronic angers of that house, Speaking indifferently to him,” (Lines 9-10).There seemed to be tension between the two, until the narrator had his coming of age. The father was good to his son, and although they may have had a bad relationship at first, I believe the relationship got better once the narrator had his coming of

At the end of James Joyce’s “Eveline,” the title character’s eye-opening epiphany and subsequent anxiety attack illustrate the dehumanization experienced by women in patriarchal societies. Near the end of the story, Eveline makes a choice to leave her toxic family situation where she feels “herself in danger of her father’s violence” (Joyce 28) and decides to sail away with her lover, Frank. However, as she stands with Frank on the dock, she feels him “seize her hand,” (Joyce 31) and he commands her like a dog: “Come!” (Joyce 31). Eveline suddenly realizes that Frank’s changing behavior could indicate that he is equally as abusive as her father, and she fears that “[Frank] would drown her.” After he calls her again, she cries out, “No! No!

In order to solve Eveline’s paradox, Joyce employs sentence structure to elaborate how important the father and Frank are to Eveline. The father is given much longer sentences than any of the other characters, such as “He said she used to squander the money, that she had no head, that he wasn 't going to give her his hard-earned money to throw about the streets, and much more, for he was usually fairly bad on Saturday night.” (Joyce 65-68), and “When they were growing up he had never gone for her like he used to go for Harry and Ernest, because she was a girl; but latterly he had begun to threaten her and say 3 what he would do to her only for her dead mother 's sake. “ (55-58) contain forty words and forty eight words each respectfully. Frank, when he is first introduced, is also given slightly longer sentences. The third sentence in Frank’s introduction, “She was to go away with

After years of being told that she needs a man in order to be successful, she truly believes it and struggles to find the independence that would allow her to travel to Buenos Aires. The years of being told that she is inferior to men eventually lead to a deep seated belief in her mind that makes it very difficult for her to successfully break free of her gender role. In his essay, “Critical Essay on ‘Eveline” Scott Trudell demonstrates this when he says, “In other words, in Eveline's subconscious mind, which is deeply infused with the sexism she has learned from her culture and from her abuser, she can only conceive of her "value" as the property of a father figure.” (16). Although Eveline does want to break free of her gender role, she is unable to because of the the belief that she needs a man in her life and that her entire value is based on whichever man accompanies her. Not only does Eveline believe that her worth is based on her man’s, Eveline believes that she needs protection from a man in her life. Scott Trudell writes in a “Critical Essay on ‘Eveline’’ that “Eveline pictures both of these men as her potential protector. She seems to be searching for a tender father figure; somewhat illogically, she tries to balance her father's increasing capacity for violence by remembering random acts of gentleness. And she pictures Frank in a similar way, as a savior and protector to "take her in his arms, fold her in his arms," (15). Instead of searching for what is best for her, Eveline wants to find a protector and bases her decision on which man will protect her the best. Ultimately, her need for a protector drives her to stay with her father, who although abuses her, is more familiar and trustworthy than Frank. This presents a greater characteristic of women in the

“When the right moment came, he jumped. As he fell, the folly of his haste occurred to him with merciless clearness, the vastness of what he had left undone (Cather, 15).” In this excerpt, Paul is faced with ultimate reality right before he dies realizing that there are so many other places he has yet to see. The adolescent life comes with many struggles especially because of the psychological changes that are occurring during the time of development. In Willa Cather’s narrative, “Paul’s Case,” Paul’s relationship with his widowed father isn’t the most ideal relationship, especially because he often revolves his thoughts around his own emotions, disregarding how the people around him feel about his actions. Similarly, in James Joyce’s “Eveline,” Eveline also has a conflicting relationship with her widowed father that, on the other hand, prevents her from living her own life because of the promise she made to her mother right before she passed away. The two characters that have been impacted by their parental relationship are both Paul and Eveline, because of the lack partnership they have with their parental figures, the disassociation with their fathers have caused their decisions to affect their quest for personal autonomy as young adults.

people take a moment to commiserate or feel remorseful for someone, yet they rarely give it another thought. As a class, we read a short story by James Joyce called Eveline. The first time reading this story, it was a bit confusing and quite irritating. As a woman of the 21st century, one whom is “fierce” and independent, I found it tough to sympathize with Eveline. “Stop your pity party and create a happier life.” This is what I found myself saying, after my initial reading. However, I took a step back and actually looked at the story. I remembered the context, it takes place in. The year, country, and how different things were back then. Placing myself in Eveline’s shoes, a woman from the early 1900’s, assisted me in sympathizing with her.