Eveline

“Still they seemed to have been rather happy then.”

With this statement, Joyce provides the first clear hint that Eveline’s home life is unhappy. The pages that follow illustrate the abuse, difficulties, and loneliness that create her present unhappiness, while the phrasing here reveals Eveline’s confusion feels. The retroactive excuses she makes for her family are early hints that she is not sure whether she should leave.

“Perhaps she would never see again those familiar objects from which she had never dreamed of being divided.”

Joyce’s word choice immediately juxtaposes the familiarity of Eveline’s home with the fact that she is abandoning that familiarity. Combining the two thoughts in one relatively short sentence mirrors the way Eveline’s thoughts vacillate between her options. She wants to go, but the familiarity of her current home competes with a fear of the unknown, making Eveline question her decision.

“She had consented to go away, to leave her home. Was that wise?”

Although Joyce retains the grammatical use of active voice, his phrasing in this moment indicates Eveline’s passivity. Instead of finding and choosing her own path to escape her present unhappiness, Eveline simply agreed to another’s plan. Instead of making things happen, things happen to her, revealing her tendency to follow rather than to lead. This hints at her future passivity when she stays paralyzed on the dock.