Literary Workshop – Eveline, a story from Dubliners by James Joyce

Activities
1. Lead-in – Share a personal experience, real or imaginary, with your class of a time
when you left a familiar place for somewhere different (moving house, new school) and
the feelings that you had about the move – fear, worry, uncertainty etc.
Then tell your class to remember a time in the past when they moved somewhere
new. Listen to students’ responses and ask about their feelings and thoughts at the
time of moving.

It is important to draw on students’ experiences in order to make texts

relevant to their lives and to show them that their experiences matter

Tell class they are going to read and work on a short story that is about a young
woman making a decision to leave a familiar place for a new life.

Read the story, Eveline.

2. Oral work

From your reading of the story, what are the main points you would make about the
plot/storyline? Does much actually happen in the story?

Plotlessness: The story ‘Eveline’ is typical of other stories in Dubliners in

lacking any sort of recognizable plot. The story line is quite simple, we learn
about Eveline’s past and present life and her failed action. The plotlessness
anticipates Ulysses where the ‘slice of life’ extends across 18 hours in the lives
of three main characters with a huge supporting cast.

What do you think is Joyce’s main focus then? Actions or impressions? (Joyce
works through impressions.)
As in other stories in Dubliners, Joyce uses a free indirect style to create a
story coloured by Eveline’s internal impressions. Free indirect style is a form
of third person narrative which mimics the vocabulary and expressions of a
particular character. This style allows Joyce to distance himself from his
characters. It aims to convey a way of thinking and feeling informally and
from the inside without using direct speech, reported speech or author
summary or analysis. The free indirect style anticipates the ‘stream-of-
consciousness’ method used by Joyce in the early chapters of Ulysses. When
Eveline repeats the word ‘hard’, e.g. ‘She had hard work to keep the house
together’, ‘It was hard work – a hard life’ (42), Joyce is revealing her limited
use of language, it’s an example of verbal paralysis.

Joyce is a very careful writer, every detail in his tightly written texts tells us
something. In this story what do you think might be the significance of the
name Eveline? The first part of the name is Eve. This reminds us of Eve in the
Book of Genesis who represents every woman, sharing common experiences of
women everywhere. So Eveline could be understood then to represent woman as
victim on the basis of the information given to us in the story about her life
experience.
 Opening of the story (to “shining roofs” – How would you describe Eveline’s
physical environment?
What words and/or phrases in this text create that impression? (Note: ‘odour of
dusty cretonne’ is repeated later)

‘evening invade the avenue’ – military/battle image found in other stories

Joyce is creating an ‘atmosphere’ in the opening with key words and phrases.
What do you think is the purpose of this introduction? How does it add to the
story’s meaning?

The introduction shows Joyce using the technique of compression (using as few
words as possible to give the necessary information). He succeeds
in conveying concise information to the reader about Eveline’s world in ‘a style
of scrupulous meanness’. By ‘scrupulous’ Joyce means precise or exact,
capturing detail clearly. ‘Meanness’ refers to Joyce sometimes letting the city
speak for itself without author commentary or analysis. So, as an example, in
the opening of ‘Eveline’, Joyce lets the precise details of the physical
environment communicate the impression that Eveline is trapped in drab and
dark circumstances. The introduction gives us clues about what we will later
learn about Eveline, that she ultimately fails to act or escape, she suffers from
paralysis of action. If we have been paying attention to Joyce’s text we should
not be surprised at what happens at the end. Eveline, like other characters in
Dubliners, is not fully alive, she is a victim of paralysis in one of its many forms.

3. Group work – Each group is given a short extract from the story and a question to
address:

A. From reading this text what question do you have about Frank?
“Frank was very kind, manly, open-hearted. … Of course, her father had found out
the affair and had forbidden her to have anything to say to him. ‘I know these
sailor chaps,’ he said. One day he had quarrelled with Frank, and after that she had
to meet her lover secretly.”

B. From reading this text what question do you have about Eveline’s father?
“Even now, though she was over nineteen, she sometimes felt herself in danger of
her father’s violence….dead mother’s sake….Sometimes he could be very nice …
to make the children laugh.”

C. From reading this text what question do you have about Eveline’s relationship
with Frank?
“Escape! She must escape! Frank would save her. He would give her life, perhaps
love, too. But she wanted to live. .. He would save her.”

When the groups have formulated one key question each, either get feedback from
each group or pass the questions on so that every group has a different group’s
question (s). Then discuss the following:

What is your response to this question based on evidence from the story?
Can you see any way of finding answers to these questions?

These passages show Joyce’s use of ambiguity, a technique to be found in all his
stories and later works. The stories are entirely ambiguous (having more than
one possible meaning or interpretation), they are not simple, easy reads. Joyce

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intends for readers to try to work things out, to continue the discussion and
interpretation as critics still do today.

4. Role on the wall

Draw a large outline of girl/Eveline on board/sheet and tell group that we are going to
be writing Eveline’s feelings/emotions inside the body and the problems/pressures on
her from her life outside the body – from home/family, work/peers and herself.
First everybody in groups will draw a body in outline and write words inside the body
that they believe describe the girl’s feelings and words outside the body that best
describe the pressures on her from her life.
This is a good way to train students to be in a space, to organise themselves and
to collaborate.
When class have done the activity tell them to pick one or two words on the
girl(inside and outside) and put on the large body at top of room.

Bring class up to board and talk to them about the picture. What does a word tell us?
Why do you think that word is there above her head? Talk through choice and
placement of words.

OR

Display all work at top of classroom, students invited to comment on choice of words
by different groups – similarities and differences

5. Group work – Focus on persuasive language

Give each group in the class one of the extracts from Eveline noted below and the
accompanying question.
A. Outline the arguments that Eveline makes in this passage for leaving Dublin.
What do you think of her arguments?

“Then she would be married …for her dead mother’s sake”.

(will be treated with respect, father is violent)

B. Outline the arguments that Eveline makes in this passage for leaving Dublin.
What do you think of her arguments?

“And now she had nobody to protect her …their meals regularly”.
(On her own, rows over money, meanness of father)

C. Outline one argument that Eveline makes in this passage for leaving Dublin.
What do you think of her argument?

“She was about to explore another life with Frank…home waiting for
her …As she mused the pitiful vision of her mother’s life … He would save her”.
(Frank would give her life)

Note: It is most shocking that when Eveline thinks of escaping with Frank, she
reveals that she only wants the most basic thing, life. Love would be a bonus
rather than a priority. It is clear from this that Eveline is not fully alive.

D. Outline the arguments that Eveline makes in this passage for staying in Dublin.
What do you think of her arguments?

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 “In her home anyway … all her life about her” and “Her father was becoming
old lately … home together as long as she could”.

Get feedback from each group.

Notes:
The presence of money in this and all the stories is seen as corrosive and
destructive. Money appears often at crucial moments.

In Dubliners the family displays all the signs of paralysis. Fathers tend to be
drunken, quarrelsome, inadequate at work and ineffectual in the home. They are
bullies who take out their frustrations on their wives and children. Mothers are
less uniformly selfish, but they too are far from desirable. In ‘Eveline’, the father
is a drunkard, a bully and a wife-beater; the mother eventually goes mad.

6. Individual written work

Write the speech that Eveline would make to defend her decision to stay in Dublin.
Include points from the text and use some of the following techniques:

• A planned and logical structure

• An attention-grabbing opening
• Emotional language and imagery
• Use of the personal ‘I’
• Evidence – facts, statistics etc. to prove a point
• Repetition
• Epigrams
• Rhetorical questions
• Exaggeration
• Humour
• Contrast
• A conclusion that draws together the main points for the argument

7. Oral work
Final paragraph in the story, “ She stood among the swaying crowd… or
recognition”.

Select the words and phrases in this text that suggest death (boat details, the bell,
Eveline’s white face).
What do you think Joyce wants to tell us about Eveline in the final paragraph?

Joyce’s use of epiphany

The text in the final paragraph is an example of an epiphany.
The term ‘epiphany’ is borrowed from a religious context, it didn’t exist in
literary criticism in the early 20th century. An epiphany is a kind of revelation
or insight. Joyce’s epiphanies are various and variable. They can be important
revelations about characters or moments of anti-insight/deflation.

How would you describe Joyce’s attitude towards Eveline in this story?
Is it sympathetic or ironic/detached? Difficult to say, which dominates, but you
could say both are present to varying degrees: sympathy for the hard life she
lives/deprivation; ironic/detached when she fails to seize the opportunity she
has been given to escape because of self-imposed internal restraint
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 Rewrite the ending from the perspective of an excited young woman eager to
start a new life
The purpose of this exercise is to show how mood affects perception and
the type of language used.

8. Dialogue (Individual or pair work)

‘I know these sailor chaps,’ he said.

One day he had quarreled with Frank, and after that she had to meet her lover
secretly (43).

Write the text of the quarrel that takes place between Frank and Eveline’s father.
Use direct speech.

9. Short story
Write a short story based on the idea of a ‘quarrel’.

10. Diary entries – Explain that diaries are a daily record of a person’s life. Who is
the audience for a diary? What style will a diary writer use then? Have you ever
read or kept a diary?

Imagine you are Eveline. You have just returned home from the North Wall. Based
on your experiences at the North Wall, write a diary entry that captures your
thoughts and feelings.

11. Hot seating (drama in education. The teacher takes on the role of a character,
in this case, Eveline, and sits in front of the class. The class in pairs or groups
of three decide what one or two questions they want to ask the teacher about
Eveline. The teacher tells the class how many questions can be formulated per
group.
Eveline is on the chair, what do you want to know? What do you want to say to
her? Focus on her relationships with her family and Frank, her present home and
work situation, her motivation for staying, her plans now? Etc.

Hot seating can be a very effective teaching strategy, enabling students to

develop their oral skills and to appreciate the thoughts and feelings of key
characters, their motivation, personality etc.

12. Comparing two texts – Comparative work helps students to make

distinctions, links and evaluations.
Play Beatles song, ‘She’s Leaving Home’. Ask class to give the main points of the
story in the song. Compare with ‘Eveline’ using a writing frame (Double Venn
diagram or H – Map comparison chart).

What is the same – some points

‘Slice of life’ stories
Problem parent/child relationships
Young girls want to leave home
Both girls have been unhappy for years
Both girls have appointments with a man
The parents had hard lives and made sacrifices for their children

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 What is different – some points
Parents’ point of view is central in the song, Eveline’s thoughts and feelings are
central in the story
The reasons for wanting to leave home are different
Girl in song leaves, Eveline stays
Girl’s parents realize there was a problem, Eveline’s father doesn’t learn that she is
unhappy (although we can speculate that, during the quarrel between Frank and
Eveline’s father, Frank told him Eveline was unhappy).
Girl’s parents both live at home, Eveline has assumed the maternal role now her
mother is dead

Conclusion: ‘The Dead’

Joyce didn’t just see Dublin as the centre of paralysis. In most stories there is
reference to private parties, all hospitable and festive occasions filled with jokes,
poetry and song. Where there is music, there is also joy and life.

Joyce added ‘The Dead’ as the final story in the collection because he said,
“sometimes thinking of Ireland it seems to me that I have been unnecessarily harsh. I
have reproduced none of the attractions of the city such as its hospitality”. ‘The Dead’
was Joyce’s way of showing Dublin’s hospitality and warmth, of compensating for an
over-emphasis on peoples’ failings in earlier stories.

Importantly, in ‘The Dead’ Joyce destroyed the division between the living and the
dead. Here we discover that we are all linked together, the dead are palpably present
and the living bow before them. When the central character Gabriel Conroy learns
about his wife’s former lover he becomes humble. He becomes aware that we cannot
control our memories of the dead, the dead are among us. They cannot be confined to
a particular place or left in the past.

The film, The Dead, directed by John Huston is excellent. It is an adaptation of the
short story of the same title in Dubliners.