Book Review // Eveline by James Joyce
Introduction
As part of the statement, this paper seeks to discuss the outline and significance of Eveline by James Joyce. It seeks to find out regarding the social and personal issues affected by the storyline of the book. As a synopsis of the short story, Eveline is a short story that talks about the dream of leaving Ireland by a woman named Eveline. It concentrates her storyline wherein she wants to seek for a greener pasture to support her family after her mother died. Eveline started working to meet her family’s daily needs. She worked different jobs to ensure that she always bring something to feed her siblings who are always waiting for her at the end of the day. But when realizing about her past, she decided to decline an offer that should have prompted her to work abroad because she prefer to stay with her family at home.
The theme of the short story exemplifies a socio-cultural norm of a certain household that are struggling for survival. For this reason, the main character of the story is the eldest of the sibling, in which they take responsibility to be the breadwinner of the family apart from their parents. This is especially when parents were already deceased, which is a heart breaking scenario for every family who has been relying on their family member in order to sustain their daily expense. The remaining elder in the family is tasked to replace their parents, which is the only way to support the needs of the younger siblings so that they would sustain everything that would make their lives easier. The elder is always tasked to take decisions and will ensure that every needs of the family should be applied to prevent the family from being at risk for hunger in the long run.
The author indicated that Eveline becomes as a surrogate mother to her other siblings after their mother died. She took the responsibility as the lone parent to provide the needs of her younger siblings. This is as well to provide for her own need because she also needs something that fulfills her dreams and aspirations in life. She has been working in several outlets, which has been helpful for her to gain monetary returns that enable her family to eat at least three times a day. By making 7 shillings a week, this is already enough for her and for her siblings because aside from buying food to sustain their family’s needs, Eveline is also capable of buying other emergent needs such as medical expenses whenever her siblings became sick. For this reason, Eveline makes sacrifices in order to meet the needs of her siblings and other members of the family.
One sad scenario of the story is about the treatment of her father. Every time that Eveline will receive her paycheck, her father is already waiting to get it. The most concerning scenario is when the father will use the paycheck of Eveline to buy booze just to satisfy his own self. This is a very saddening issue for Eveline because she has been used by her father, which further makes Eveline struggle to survive as well as to meet the needs of her family. This is one of the main issues why Eveline becomes depressed. And if she appears to idle herself, the only way for her to compensate her anxiety is by looking at the window and watching other children playing on the ground. Their neighbors understand’s Eveline’s situation but there is nothing they can do to help her due to her father’s behavioral issues and frustrations (Uphaus. n.p.).
One day, Eveline met her love interest while doing her regular routine in Ireland. His name is Frank, which is a young man with a promising future. Frank is a hardworking young man who wants to make his life productive. As an ambitious person, Frank is willing to travel and will change his working environment to other places just to fulfill his ambition, which is a part of his career. When he met Eveline, they started dating with each other after finding out that there are several things in common between them. One day, Frank proposed to Eveline regarding a brighter future that awaits them if Eveline permits it. This is by living and working in Buenos Aires, which is thousands miles away from Ireland. This means that they should travel across the Atlantic Ocean and will land to another continent that will start a new life as well as a career together.
Eveline was delighted to know that there is a brighter future ahead of her, knowing that she could elevate her socio-economic lifestyle. She is also thankful that there is one person who will always look upon her because after all, he is her love interest that is always willing to be her life partner while living in another place. Eveline thought about transferring to another place because she believes that this is one of the best ways to cope up with the struggling socio-economic lifestyle of their family since their mother died. Aside from elevating her socio-economic status, Eveline is also thinking about getting away from his father’s abusive nature for always getting her paycheck and buying booze. The offer is quite tempting for Eveline because it will drastically change her lifestyle sometime in the future after moving in with Frank and will live in Buenos Aires (Joyce, n.p.).
But in a snap, Eveline decided to decline the offer of her love interest, Frank. Although she is aware that there is a bright future ahead of her, she decided that it is best for her to stay and will just allow Frank to slip through her hands and then travel alone to Buenos Aires. Eveline also knows that even if there is a promising future ahead of her, she still prefers to be with her family. Overall, love is always thicker than water. She opted to live in a miserable life with her family because in the end, her family will always be her main partner whenever there are crisis that will be experienced in the future. Even if the consequence is to prolong the hardships as well as the suffering from being a breadwinner of the family, Eveline’s love for her family is still regarded as the most beneficial as spending her time alone with her life partner overseas.
Conclusion
It has been concluded that the storyline depicted about the strong family values that keeping the relationship of the families intact. This is a real-life scenario that relates with the situation of other households all over the world. This is especially applicable to countries living in a developing status, in which the number of illiterate, poor, and unable to sustain their basic needs is always struggling to meet ends. For every family, bravery is an important measure to allow every person in the family to be always patient. Being perseverant will assure that there is something promising that can be associated with a certain individual’s progress with their socio-economic status with hard work and determination in life. Overall, sacrifice has been playing an important role to ensure that goals are always achieved by taking risk to improve the current status of one’s life.
Works Cited
Joyce, James. Eveline. London: Elsevier. 1904. Print.
Uphaus, Maxwell. An unworkable compound: Ireland and Empire in Eveline. 2014. Print.
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