A Dream For Escape In Eveline By James Joyce

The characters make dreams that cannot be achieved in John Steinbeck’s, Of Mice and Men, where friendship and loneliness are shown by certain characters in this novella.

Have you ever had a dream that you have been really committed to? Has something or someone ever stopped you short of that or any dream of yours? These questions are quite relevant to the main characters in the selections Of Mice and Men and “Only Daughter”. Of Mice and Men is a well-known story by John Steinbeck that tells the tale of two travel companions, George Milton and Lennie Small, as they dream and work hard to gain a small piece of land for themselves during The Great Depression, a harsh financial time. “Only Daughter” is an autobiographical essay by Sandra Cisneros about her struggles on trying to bond with her father while being impeded by her six brothers. The two selections’ main dreams are both corresponding and distinct in various ways. The dreams are also very substantial to the one who holds it. George and Lennie’s dream, in Of Mice and Men, influenced their lifestyle, behavior, and relationship between them. Sandra Cisneros’s dream, from “Only Daughter”, had an impact on the topic of her writing, her writing style, and her relationship with her father, who she has been trying to gain the approval for her writing career for many years.

In the novel “ Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck, is a fiction book that lets the readers know about two ranch hands who go together everywhere and they end up coming to a ranch to earn money for the dream they have to own some acres but they ended up having to go through some hard times which made it to never happen. Steinbeck wants us to know that dreams aren’t real, because they aren’t achievable, they don’t take actions to make it happen. Steinbeck uses foreshadowing and symbolism to express the theme by creating suspense and emotional connections to the characters and their dreams.

Storytelling has been used for all of human existence to pass down ideas and morals. Writing was just the next step in allowing additional individuals to have access to the multitude of new stories being created. When different people read the same story, they are able to glean different things from it. This is due to the fact that people read the stories on different levels and with differing viewpoints. Upon the first reading of “Dream Children”, by Gail Godwin, a reader may view the story as a timeless, boring love story. However, if a reader dives into the story from a feministic approach, one sees a deeper plot where Mrs. McNair is imprisoned by societal norms and longs for an understanding of her feelings and desires.

“I was not looking for my dreams to interpret my life, but rather for my life to interpret my dreams.” Susan Sontag was an American writer, filmmaker, teacher, and political activist. She expresses how life and all of its conflicts can affect one’s dreams. What are dreams? In life, dreams can be experiences to look forward to, hard work at a job, or other things of the imagination. Dreams can also be something to hope for or to accomplish. Sadly, there are conflicts that can get in the way of someone reaching their dream. A person’s sex can give power or powerlessness, determine the expected behaviors of male and females, and judge a person’s appearance. In the works of To Kill A Mockingbird,

Dreams are something all humans share in common and they manifest the realization of our lives. They have a great influence over our essence and can provide colossal amounts of courage and strength to accomplish our greatest desires. However, when we do not have dreams to fight for our lives become meaningless and sorrowful, nevertheless this is the situation many people face throughout their lives. Broken dreams have become a popular theme among writers because a connection can be made with the theme and because there one’s truth can be faced. Whether dreams are forgotten or unaccomplished, there is a theory by philosopher Carl Jung that states, “Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment, and especially on

‘A Dream Within A Dream’ was written by Edgar Allan Poe on 1849, the year that he was found dead because of substance abuse. Considering that the author had gone through many hard times throughout his life with the loss of his beloved ones, this poem might refer to the emotional pain he suffered that let him to question the reality of life. The poem is written in despair as the tone is a mixture of mystery, loneliness and despair. The poem deals with the speaker’s troubling idea that reality is just a dream as the narrator parts from his/her lover at first and then struggles to accept and live with the truth. The reader gets the sense of loneliness as the poem is full of imagery with metaphorically questioning and emotional words, taking

Since Romanticism often places emphasis on the importance of emotion, Romantics may use dream imagery to display the overflow of abundant feelings. Such is the case with Edgar Allen Poe’s “Ligeia”. While Poe’s themes are usually Romantic, “Ligeia” uses dreams to “[dramatize] the romantic's disenchantment with a world drained of its power to arouse joy and a sense of elevated being” (Gargano 338). The fine line of fantasy vs reality is blurred and bestows multiple versions of reality as the narrator slowly descends into madness. Poe’s use of dream imagery is prominent during the descriptions of the house, the narrators reminiscences of his first wife Ligeia, and his opium induced hallucinations. The use of this literary device demonstrates how the loss of Ligeia messes with the narrator's sanity and sense of fulfillment in his life. These dreams enable him to revisit Ligeia“out of [his] own self-consciousness” (Lawrence).

Eveline has begun to question her happiness. "Could she still draw back after all he had done for her?" (Joyce 33) She questions whether it is really better for her to go off with Frank and let him be her savior, but again, she declines. "No! No! No! It was impossible." (Joyce 33) Once again because she is so terrified of that which lies a mystery, she decides to stay with what she knows.

In 'Araby' and 'Eveline' Joyce uses religious symbols to show the importance of the Catholic religion in both of the main characters' lives. Both of these stories take place in Dublin, Ireland, a place that is very strong in its belief in the Catholic religion. In 'Araby,' the imagery of the infamous 'Fall' is presented to the reader within the second paragraph to indicate its importance. The themes of religious masses can be found in 'Eveline.' The concept of the Catholic Ash Wednesday is presented throughout both 'Araby' and 'Eveline.'

Human beings yearn for better lives, often through escape. The main characters in James Joyce's Dubliners are no exception. Characters such as Eveline in "Eveline" and Little Chandler in "A Little Cloud" have a longing to break free of Dublin's entrapment and pursue their dreams. Nevertheless, these characters never seem to achieve a better state; rather, they are paralyzed and unable to embark on their journey of self-fulfillment. Joyce employs this motif of the empty promise of escape and its subsequent frustration through one's own responsibilities and purely physical acts. Through this, Joyce interconnects the different Dubliners stories to show that escaping life in a place as paralyzing as Dublin is no easy task on the individual.

The man recognizes how easy it is to surrender to the mirage of good dreams, where the richness of color and variety of detail provides a dangerous contrast to the grey monotony of both his and his son’s reality. Often, he awakens “in the black and freezing waste out of softly colored worlds of human love, the songs of birds, the sun,” (272). Those dreams are an invitation to rest in some nonexistent land. The man recognizes this as a dangerous temptation so he forces himself to wake up and face the cruel world rather than deteriorate in a world that no longer exists. His philosophy is that “the right dreams for a man in peril were dreams of peril and all else was the call of languor and of death.” (18). Only bad dreams belong in his mind because all good dreams are a reminder of valuable days that cannot be lived

With all these facts came together, the authors determined the protagonist’s home. Joyce captured Eveline as a fragile woman who is dependent on her mother’s promise. She kept her duty of keeping the family together at home, and was unable to leave for Buenos Ayres with her love. She avoided the consequences of disobeying her mother’s promise because she is guilty of betraying her mother’s promise and would only hurt her in the end as her mother said constantly, “Derevaun Seraun!” (Joyce 534). Hemingway showed how Harold severed ties with his family because of his traumatic experience

Throughout James Joyce’s “Dubliners” there are four major themes that are all very connected these are regret, realization, self hatred and Moral paralysis, witch is represented with the actual physical paralysis of Father Flynn in “The Sisters”. In this paper I intend to explore the different paths and contours of these themes in the four stories where I think they are most prevalent ,and which I most enjoyed “Araby”, “Eveline”, “The Boarding House”, and “A Little Cloud”.

James Joyce’s “Eveline” is a short story about a nineteen-year-old Eveline, who contemplates abandoning a life she is accustomed to and moving to a distant land with a man she hardly knows. In one hand she holds the weight of uncertain happiness, in the other, inevitable misery. Eveline needs to make a choice between two contrasting lives; one in which she is a servant to her father, in other, a respected wife. Following her mother’s death, Eveline assumes the role of a parent and inherits all the chores accompanying it. She works hard at home and “the Stores” (Joyce 74), but for all her troubles, Eveline gets little respect in return. Now with one brother dead and other away on business, she is left alone to keep the family together and