Studying The Sacrifices Of Peoples Happiness English Literature Essay

Very few people in this world can selflessly sacrifice their happiness and dream for the sake of people they love. In “Eveline”, James Joyce portrays a character of a young nineteen year old girl. Eveline falls in love with Frank who was sailor. But when she was asked to leave with Frank to live her own life, she selflessly gave up her dream and loves to fulfill her duty towards her family. She is a good selfless girl who puts her family first. In order to show Eveline is such a good girl, Joyce presents her decision in context of setting, social expectation and family obligation.

Joyce sets “Eveline” during 1914 which was a harsh time for woman. The women were expected by the society to take responsibility of the home. Back then women were not given much power or position in the society. Due to this reason her father was never proud of Eveline and had always given more likes to his son’s (533). Ingersol in his article assert that “even if she leaves her room at the end of the story-indeed especially if she does not-she has passed a life sentence on herself as a “house keeper”, a servant of details” (506). Ingersol’s point here is that if she does not leave with frank that evening then she would be in that house forever where she cannot imagine her life with someone else and live with her family forever. Even though this was a very hard decision to take she chooses to be a servant for her family because she did not want let her family down.

The religious symbolism that Joyce uses in the story were the photograph of the priest, the broken harmonium (532) proves that she was a catholic. Even her brother Harry worked in the church decorating business which automatically proves that Eveline’s family was very religious. Similarly, even at the end when she was ready to leave at the station with Frank she was still confused if she was making the right decision and prayed to god to direct her and show what was her duty(534).So she bid her love good bye. Thus the religious symbolism that Joyce used became a powerful and positive guide for Eveline to make her decisions to be with her family.

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Eveline, after her mother death, was forced to take up the sole responsibility of the household, brothers and drunken father abuses which make her live an unhappy life. According to Ingersol all the dust she cleaned in the house every day, the broken harmonium and her Saturday nights quarrel with her father has made her housewife before marriage (504). But when she got chance to live a life with the love named Frank, she was torn between her conflicting desires-her desire to pursue her happiness or stay loyal to her family. During this conflicting situation she recalls all the memories of her childhood where she played with neighborhood children and one moment where her father was “very nice” (533).Ingersol asserts “whether she stands on the quay being “shouted at” to come abroad or stands instead her room fantasying her inability to move forward in answer to his cry of desire is not important finally” (505). Ingersol point, here, that Eveline desire to go abroad was not important to her at all. This shows how she is devoted to her family and fulfills her duty that is expected by the society.

Joyce presents Eveline as a good girl who has completely devoted herself to taking care of her family .when she was thinking about leaving home, she is taken into her past and remember that she had made promise to keep home together as long as she could (534). She also thought about her father and he was also becoming old and she would miss him if she just left (533).Murphy asserts that Eveline is having conflicting situation between different times. He talks about lost time, now time and future time. He further notes that “Eveline’s recollection of past events of lost time and her decisive reinterpretation of these same event in now time” (116). Murphy’s point here is that Eveline’s life has been continuing effect on her past life. Due to this effect she gives her priority to her family and keeps her mother’s promise which proves that she was a good girl.

Duty and happiness are part of our life. Both go hand in hand to have a normal life .but when we are made to choose between one. The one who choose duty over happiness are proved to be the selfless being, just like Eveline who sacrificed her happiness and fulfilled all family obligations.

Work cited

Ingersoll, Earl G. “The stigma of femininity in James Joyce’s `Eveline’ and `The Boarding House’.” Studies in Short Fiction 30.4(1993): 501-510.

Academic Search Complete .EBSCOhost. Prescott Memorial Library, Lousiana Tech University 18 Apr.2009 .

Joyce,James. “Eveline”. The Bedford Introduction to Literature . 8th ed.Ed.Michael Meyer. Boston : Bedford ,St. Martin’s, 2008. 532-534.

Murphy,Terence Patrick. “Interpreting marked order narration: The case of James Joyce’s “Eveline”.” Journal of Literary Semantics 34. 2 (2005): 107-124.

Academic Search Complete .EBSCOhost. Prescott Memorial Library, Lousiana Tech University 18 Apr.2009 .