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Maureen introduces: hi all. i am working quickly here and against the ticking clock. so i will just share some of my thoughts and then i have some questions to pose, some which i think are merely interesting and others which are questions puzzling me at present. one of the neatest things, to my mind, about _eveline_ is that it is a story written from the minds' eye and the experience of a female. in this story, i feel like joyce really touches on some centrally important womens issues, not only in ireland, but issues that exist for women globally. if paying attention to the word choices he makes in his description of eveline's life, we see that he is drawing a bleak, suffocated, really hopeless scenario. the initial commentary: she sits looking out a window, word choices are things like 'nostrils' 'odour' 'dusty' 'tired', etc. right off the bat we know that something is not quite right for eveline. we later find that she lives under the death wish of her mother, that she is beaten by her father and so on. what is it that joyce is trying to say about womens issues here? is this an early example of a feminist work? an interesting little diddy that i am not sure what to make of: the brother ernest. we know only a few things about him: 1) he is dead, he had to have died young; 2) he is eveline's 'favorite'; 3) ernest protects eveline, and he is the only one who does that; 4) and, "Ernest however never played, he was too grown up." also, i think it is interesting that his name is ernest, which can also be written as 'earnest', and yet he is dead. is that symbolic in some way, i wondered? i esp. wonder this when i recall the theme of hypocrisy in _sisters_ that so glared at me when i read it recently. he uses a lot of symbol in this story, not only in his various descriptive choices re: eveline the character, but also, she is about to go to 'buenos ayres' which is really spelled buenos aires; she stands on a bridge of sorts between 'the home and the world'; but i wonder what it is that she is really caught between? anyway i found the symbolism in this story amazingly powerful and i could go on about it forever... i thought there was a parallel here too between her ending and the ending for our boy protagonist in _araby_. in addition, hema mentioned the theme of 'paralysis' and i had thought as well that this story bore out that theme too. in reading this, it struck me that there are mucho, 'way numerous' parallels to the ghatak film, _meghe dhaka tara_ (sp?), no? so many!! think about when she springs up after recalling her mother's death wish and says to herself, 'i want to live!'; how she gives all of her money to the family; how she sits looking out the window, just as nita did in the film; also, she gives up love and her own happiness for duty? that's all i have for now because they are closing the lab! :-) sorry to be so hasty but it can't be helped. in closing, wasn't _eveline_ a welcome story and a nice break from mean (masturbating?) priests and other unattractive people? :) best, maureen. |
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