RIASSUNTO EVELINE DUBLINERS JAMES JOYCE, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica RIASSUNTO EVELINE DUBLINERS JAMES JOYCE e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! DUBLINERS - EVELINE This story belongs to a collection of fifteen short stories called DUBLINERS (1914). “Eveline” belongs to the second section of stories called Adolescence. “Eveline” is a short story which describes the life of a 19 years old girl, called Eveline Hill, who has the opportunity to change her life and her insignificant and sad routine leaving Dublin by boat with her boyfriend Frank, a sailor, towards the new world in the city of Buenos Aires, where a new life is waiting for her; a marriage with a kindhearted young man who loves her, a respectable new social status of wife and a house of her own where to grow a family. Eveline has a chance for freedom and Frank represents her saviour, an opportunity to have a different destiny, a different fate from that of her dead mother who had a troubled life full of sacrifices and miseries caused mainly by the presence of a violent and evil husband. The entire story takes place in Eveline’s mind, where her present is linked to the miseries of a dull job as a shop assistant in a Department Store of the city of Dublin, often mistreated by a rude superior who hates her and by the hardships experienced daily in a poor and miserable flat in a popular area of Dublin, which is a sort of prison where she continues to be mistreated and abused by a violent father’s mean behaviour and authority that subdue her conduct, her dreams of young woman and her will. Eveline is a simple minded girl and she is completely alone, paralysed by her past memories and by the promise she had unconsciously made to her mother years before on the night she had died. Eveline is unable to make any decision, she is so passive to the events happening around her, that she fails at the end to achieve her dream. She has to face a conflict between love and a bright new future ahead with Frank, and a heavy moral duty imposed by a circumstantial promise made when she was still a frail child to look after her drunken father and the two younger brothers. At the end of the story, Eveline is standing on the quay beside Frank in the middle of a crowd ready to get on board the ship but, instead of being thrilled and happy, her emotions are freezed and she feels completely paralysed and unable to think or move, she is so scared of leaving her present painful situation that she clings to the railings and refuses to get on board. Frank speaks out and calls her and tries to convince her to follow him but she remains still, letting Frank proceed to the ship heading for Argentina all alone. She doesn't even greet him, kiss him or say goodbye to him, not even a word or the wave of hands. Absolutely nothing, she shares no emotions with him, she is dead inside. The final scene represents the end of her dream. One of the main themes is her failure to self-realisation. Inside the story there is a moment of revelation, an epiphany, when she is sitting in her living room and she suddenly hears the sound of a street organ that makes her think about the night in which her mother had died and about the coerced promise made which obliged the child Eveline to keep the family together taking care of the house and its components, a heavy burden laid on the shoulders of a young and unaware girl. When she is about to get onto the ship with Frank, she thinks that her fate is not to follow her dreams and love leaving a painful hard life behind, what she thinks is that her personal dreams are completely meaningless and disgraceful, she lacks in self-confidence and self-respect so what prevails in her at the end is just an imposed sense of moral duty towards her past. She does not realize that she has been abused by the entire family for years. She is a victim. The central theme of paralysis is related to the will of the Dubliners who do not have the courage to react, accept and overcome the limitations imposed by their social context. There is an atmosphere of stagnation in all the 15 stories signed by a preachy and obtuse moral attitude and behaviour. There is a depressing and unpleasant ending for all the protagonists of the stories. In fact, all the stories lack action and they all describe realistic human situations which lead to a moment of revelation, called epiphany, which involves the main character who becomes aware and realises something spiritual or social about herself/himself. Dublin is seen as a city paralysed by old traditions and by an obsolete culture, and the same is for its inhabitants who are all paralysed, in a physical and moral sense, and unable to react, all linked to religion, politics and culture. The presentation of the character Eveline is only from the inside, through her thoughts. This text is a narrated monologue (interior monologue) from the perspective of the main character. The narrated monologue allows the reader to acquire direct knowledge of the main