Eveline – Class 12 English Chapter 2 Notes & NCERT PDF

About the Author

James Joyce (1882-1941) is a major figure of early twentieth-century literature, known for his "bold experiments in narrative techniques". His most famous work is Ulysses. "Eveline" is one of the fifteen stories of Dublin life in Dubliners (1914). The book calls it "a sympathetic portrayal of Eveline, who has within her reach escape from the drudgery of her life but cannot gather enough courage to seize it."

Summary

At the window. The story opens: "She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue. Her head was leaned against the window curtains and in her nostrils was the odour of dusty cretonne. She was tired." Eveline Hill, a young woman "over nineteen", looks out at the avenue. She remembers the field where the neighbourhood children once played until "a man from Belfast" built bright new brick houses on it. Her father used to chase them out "with his blackthorn stick", and little Keogh would "keep nix". "Still they seemed to have been rather happy then": her mother was alive and her father "was not so bad then." Now her mother and Tizzie Dunn are dead and the Waters have gone to England. "Everything changes."

Weighing the decision. She looks round the room at the objects she has dusted every week for years: the broken harmonium and the "yellowing photograph" of a priest whose name she never learned. At home she has "shelter and food", but also hard work at home and at "the Stores", where Miss Gavan scolds her ("Look lively, Miss Hill, please."). She hands over her whole wage of seven shillings, then has to fight her father for housekeeping money every Saturday night. She also cares for "the two young children" left in her charge. Her father has begun to threaten her, and she feels "in danger of her father's violence". Ernest, her favourite brother, is dead, and Harry is usually away working in "the church decorating business". Married in a distant country, she thinks, "People would treat her with respect then. She would not be treated as her mother had been."

Frank. Frank is "very kind, manly, open-hearted", a sailor who began "as a deck boy at a pound a month" on the Allan Line. He has sailed through the Straits of Magellan and says he has "fallen on his feet in Buenos Aires", where a home waits for her. He took her to The Bohemian Girl and playfully called her "Poppens". Her father forbade the relationship ("I know these sailor chaps"), so they meet in secret. On her lap lie two letters, one to Harry and one to her father.

Memories that pull her back. She now remembers kinder moments with her father. He read her a ghost story and made toast when she was ill, and on a family picnic to the Hill of Howth he put on her mother's bonnet to make the children laugh. A street organ plays an air she knows, reminding her of "the promise to her mother, her promise to keep the home together as long as she could". She recalls her mother's "life of commonplace sacrifices closing in final craziness" and her dying cry: "Derevaun Seraun! Derevaun Seraun!" (possibly corrupt Gaelic for "the end of pleasure is pain"). In terror she decides: "Escape! She must escape! Frank would save her. He would give her life, perhaps love, too."

North Wall. At the station among the "swaying crowd", she prays for guidance, and the boat blows "a long mournful whistle into the mist." When Frank says "Come!", "All the seas of the world tumbled about her heart. He was drawing her into them: he would drown her." She grips the iron railing: "No! No! No! It was impossible." Frank calls "Eveline! Evvy!" but "She set her white face to him, passive, like a helpless animal. Her eyes gave him no sign of love or farewell or recognition."

Characters

Themes

Literary Devices and Style

Word Power

Board Exam Focus

The Understanding questions cover the characters she liked and disliked, her conflicting emotions, why she let the chance go, and the signs of her indecision. The Appreciation questions cover the symbols, narration through consciousness, the four closing images, and whether Joyce judges Eveline.

Outline 1: Why does Eveline not go? First, her promise to her mother to keep the home together. Second, her fear of the unknown: she sees the sea as drowning. Third, her guilt and her memories of her father's kindness. Fourth, her habit of passivity. The result is paralysis at the railing.

Outline 2: Symbols. The window shows her position between two worlds, always looking and never acting. The dusk shows that time is running out. The dusty cretonne stands for the stale, suffocating home that she still breathes in.

Outline 3: The closing images. The clanging bell is an alarm. "All the seas of the world" shows her terror. The iron railing is the security she clings to. "Helpless animal" shows that she has lost her power to choose.

Language Work covers parallelism and stress in pronunciation.

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