My Personal Reading Of Eveline

1. My Personal Reading Of Eveline Luca Fioretti IV^A A.S. 2009/2010

2. Title Meaning Eveline

3. Denotation Story Line

4. Structure Analysis The short story can be organised into two main sequences: • The first one is about showing Eveline’s thoughts while she is sat at the window: she thinks about her life (the past, the present and the future life) and present life’s conditions. In this part of the short story there are also other characters, for example Eveline’ parents and brothers. The feature of this part is that Eveline only thinks, she doesn’t act and the reader only knows his thoughts, perplexities and fears. The narrator shows Eveline in her characteristics: she is a static character. • In the second sequence it is presented another person: Frank. He is Eveline’s boyfriend and he is the person who tries to release Eveline from his static personality. They are going to life that life for a better one, but Eveline cannot react, she is unable to change her situation.

5. Narrative Techniques Kinds of Narration: • Third person omniscient narrator • Third person limited narrator Stiles: • Free direct style • Free indirect style • Free indirect thought • Direct speech

6. Characterization Main Character: Eveline Secondary Characters: Eveline’s Parents Frank Other People

8. The main character of the short story is a young woman called Eveline who is sat at the window watching what is happening in the avenue. She is thoughtful because she is thinking about her past, her present and her future life. She is alone: her mother is died and her father is not at home; she is going to leave that life because Frank, her boyfriend, promised her that they would go to Buenos Aires. But Eveline is not sure about what she is going to do: a lot of thoughts invade herself, she cannot act, she doesn’t know what to do. She is paralysed because she is unable to take a decision.

9. Reading the title of the short story Eveline written by James Joyce which belongs to the collection of short stories Dubliners, the reader imagines that the short story can tell the story of a woman or a girl or a child with this name.

10. “Her head was leaned against the window curtains and in her nostrils was the odour of dusty cretonne. She was tired.”“ […] she heard his footsteps clacking along the concrete pavement and afterwards crunching on the cinder path before the new red houses.”

11. “Few people passed.”“The station was full of soldiers with brown baggages.”

12. “As she mused the pitiful vision of her mother's life laid its spell on the very quick of her being -- that life of commonplace sacrifices closing in final craziness.”“It seemed a few weeks ago.”“ […] she prayed to God to direct her, to show her what was her duty.”

13. “The children of the avenue used to play together in that field -- the Devines, the Waters, the Dunns, little Keogh the cripple, she and her brothers and sisters.”

14. “As she mused the pitiful vision of her mother's life laid its spell on the very quick of her being -- that life of commonplace sacrifices closing in final craziness.”

15. "Miss Hill, don't you see these ladies are waiting?""Look lively, Miss Hill, please.""I know these sailor chaps," he said.She remembered her father strutting back into the sickroom saying:"Damned Italians! coming over here!"

16. Eveline’s characterization is made up by her feelings, thoughts, memories: the narrator wants to give to the reader a sense of stasis, absence of acting which are the features of Eveline’s personality. Eveline is submitted to her father. The narrator does not describe Eveline from her physical features but only with her typical behaviour and her reactions.

17. Eveline’s mother is died but she has got a relevant importance in the story. Like for the other characters the narrator doesn’t make a physical description. She is a women, so she is Eveline’s landmark: Eveline’s behaviour is the result of the lack of mother figure.- The characterization of Eveline’s father is made up by references, examples of his personality and his behaviour. The reader knows that the father is always drunk and he submits Eveline to his

18. Frank is a person who can act, react and rebel to the unhappy and bad life. He is the only person who has got dynamism in the story: he wants to change Eveline’s condition of submission to her father.

19. Other people like Eveline’s brothers, children which played with her in the childhood or the Italian organ-player are only bit players which are useful to complete, make reality the story. These characters are not described, sometimes we know their name and sometimes we don’t.