My personal reading of Eveline
Sguassero Caterina
4a
2009/2010
Eveline
Title analysis
DENOTATIVE ANALYSIS
STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS
The story is organized in two parts:
The function of the first part is to introduce the story:
• In the first part of the story no one act.
•
The reader understands who the protagonist is and who the other main
characters are.
• In the first part the you can collect information about the protagonist's
background: her family, economical, social, and emotional situation. You fell
immerse in the situation.
• There isn’t any important situation: the protagonist is sat at the window and she
is thinking about her past and her future
The function of the second part is to show the conclusion of the story:
• New elements are introduced in the setting. It changes: it is not Eveline's house
but the pier, from which she should leave towards Buenos Aires with Frank.
• In this part the protagonist act but the conclusion of the story is not happy. She
decides not to leave. She is like a wild animale that refuse her instinct.
CHARACTERIZATION
Main characters:
• Eveline and Frank
Secondary characters:
• Eveline’s family
• Miss Hill and Miss Gaven
Modigliani
TITLE:Eveline
The story starts with a proper name:Eveline. It refears to the
main character, and make immediatley clear that the
protagonist is a young lady.
Eveline belongs to a collect of short stories, the name’s is
Dubliners. Joice himself sad that dublin was the center of
pharalisis. It follows that Dublin becomes an extended
metaphore, that is a symbol.
In Joice’s opinion, Dubliners are generally people unable to
act, to take decisions, that only think and make resolutions
but never act.
Eveline is the protagonist of the story and she represents a
phase in life that coincides with adolecence.
DENOTATIVE ANALYSIS
Eveline is the name of a nineteen-year-old adolescent. She lives
in Dublin with her brother Harry and her father, her mother
and her oldest brother Ernest were dead. She is used to sit all
time by her window, seeing people in her street and waiting to
leave home. She works in a shop in Dublin and with her
money she can look after her family, in particular her father
that is always drunk. As a matter of fact he becomes a violent
man after the death of his wife. Eveline always thinks about
her life, her past, her present difficult situation and about her
future: she would like to escape. She has a fellow and she
would like to go with him to Buenos Aires by ship without
telling it her father. She wrote him and her brother a letter.
But before going to the pier, she hears an organ grinder
outside. He plays a melody that reminds her a song of an
organ she listened the day of her mother’s death. Eveline
thinks about the promise she made to her mother, to look
after the family, and when she goes to the pier to embark on
a ship together with Frank, she becomes pale and passive and
decides not leave with him.
EVELINE
The characterization of Eveline is made up from the description
of her feelings and thoghts. She isn’t described phisically, the
reader knows only what she thinks and her memories. She
doesn’t act, she doesn’t do anything interesting in her life, as
a matter of fact the narrator describes her thoughts and
feelings.
FRANK
The charaterization of Frank, Eveline’s boyfriend, is made un
from her thoughts and from the omnicient narrator that adds
informations about him. The reader knows his behaviour and
experience of life. He is the complete opposite of Eveline. He
isn’t static. He had travelled a lot and he gives her girlfriend
the possibility to change her life. He is resolutive and
courageousely,. You know it from the description of his
manners and behaviour from Eveline’s feelings.
EVELINE’S FAMILY
You know pieces of informations of Eveline’s family thanks to her
memories. You know something about the childhood of her
and her brothers and the life of her mother and father.