Eveline by James Joyce (Summary)

 

Eveline

by James Joyce

(Summary)

 

Eveline Hill is a 19-year-old girl. She works in a Dublin shop. She is sitting inside her family's house and recalling childhood, including some happy memories as well as her father's drunken brutality to her and her siblings. Eveline thinks about people she has known who have either left Ireland or died (her mother and her brother Ernest). She also thinks of her own plans to leave the country with a man 

named Frank. She recalls meeting Frank, an Irish sailor now living in Argentina, and dating him while he visited Dublin on vacation. Eveline also recalls her father's disapproval of Frank, and of her promise "to keep the home together as long as she could" before her mother grew deranged and died. Later, fearful Eveline finds herself unable to board the ferry to England, where she and Frank are scheduled to meet a ship bound for South America and he leaves without her.