Chapter Sample Question of Dubliners - Study Guide by James Joyce

third person, the sense is that we are hearing Eveline's thoughts and she evidently distrusts Frank. He is a novelty, but her father crucially wants her to keep away from him (see the last lines of the paragraph). Note the sense of his influence invading even her dreams. She is not physically described, yet we see her in our minds contemplative but wracked with competing thoughts. It is a mental description above all.

This is a vital moment:

"One day he had quarrelled with Frank, and after that she had to meet her lover secretly. The evening deepened in the avenue. The white of two letters in her lap grew indistinct. One was to Harry; the other was to her father. Ernest had been her favourite, but she liked Harry too. Her father was becoming old lately, she noticed; he would miss her. Sometimes he could be very nice. Not long before, when she had been laid up for a day, he had read her out a ghost story and made toast for her at the fire. Another day, when their mother was alive, they had all gone for a picnic to the Hill of Howth. She remembered her father putting on her mother's bonnet to make the children laugh. "

Again, her entire life is filtered through these two competing male influences. She is starting to defend her father despite the total lack of logic implicit in that decision. She wants him to be better than he is. The sense is that of the battered wife - loving him still because he was once a better man and because he is not capable of being alone any more than she is. Note that the final line of the paragraph is a 'rose-tinted' vision of the past: a cutting or selection of one single good moment to justify her indecision.

In horror at herself and the memory of her mother's death (a competing impulse against the above) she says: "She stood up in a sudden impulse of terror. Escape! She must escape! Frank would save her". But of course this is just as rose-tinted as her vision of her father. This is the notion of a heroic sailor whisking her away to a distant land. It is idealistic and essentially foolish and weak-minded. She is portrayed as a dreamer again. Note the sense of "escape". Escape is a thought but it is desperate and ill-considered. It will fail.

The rest of the story is too powerful to summarise effectively, but the effect is certain. She is desperate and in love and so is Frank but he is in love with her while she is in love with a concept of escape that she cannot go through with. She locks herself up against the oppressive image of the boat (note the description, there is none of Frank). Ask yourself who the voice saying "Come!" is - is it Frank's or is it her subconscious?

"All the seas of the world tumbled about her heart. He was drawing her into them: he would drown her.

She gripped with both hands at the iron railing."

Note the mythical undertones - of Charibdis the whirlpool drawing her under as Sirens guide her (this is Ulysses territory).

And that is it but for the final image of her. Notice that there was never a description of her until now. This is like the first line: a vision of a lonely woman caught up in herself and in her past:

"She set her white face to him, passive, like a helpless animal. Her eyes gave him no sign of love or farewell or recognition."

She is a blank. She has been brainwashed by her own conflicting desires and the ultimate wish to stay despite the urge to leave. She is "a helpless animal". That is the only description of her. She is like a rabbit in the headlights of life and wholly unable to move (i.e. escape). She is doomed.