Eveline: By James Joyce

In Eveline, James Joyce depicts the story of a confused and meek teenager, wavering between her duty to keep the promise she made to her dying mother and finding a life and happiness of her own. In the opening paragraph, Eveline is sitting by the window. "Her head was leaned against the window curtains and in her nostrils was the odour of dusty cretonne" (3). The window is very symbolic of what has been, what is, …

…even if it meant continuing to live with a person that is abusive both mentally and financial and it is only obvious that in time the abuse will become physical. Eveline is destined to become the matriarch of the family in every sense of the word just as her mother had been. Eveline is the epitome of how duty and commitment to home and family far overwhelms the desire for self fulfillment and personal happiness.