Eveline's Empty Spaces
It seems highly appropriate that James Joyce lived in Europe during the time of Cézanne, Seurat, Gauguin, and Matisse; throughout his book Dubliners he sketches his characters in a style that could be characterized as post- impressionist. Rather than smoothly, cleanly outlining and clearly delineating his characters' every feature, Joyce concentrates on hinting at the emotional meanings of his depictions with a rich thick dab of paint here and there. Although Joyce flexes his descriptive muscles in the Dubliners short story "Eveline" (1914,) he leaves much to the imagination of the reader through calculated omissions and suggestive phrases.
Such omissions begin at the opening of the story; "She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue" (Joyce 37). Joyce sets the scene with economy, simply letting the reader know that it is the onset of evening, a time of day everyone can reach into their own memories and refer to. Naturally it is getting darker, and this combined with the fact that Eveline is seated and watching suggests repose, so one might assume further that she is at home. The only bit left to ponder is the use of the word "invade." This usage really illustrates Joyce's technique in this story; it implies that this onset of night may be unwanted, an idea that is reinforced by later events. All this information has been laid out in a single sentence. Another such instance appears soon after this sentence: And yet during all those years she had never found out the name of the priest whose yellowing photograph hung on the wall above the broken harmonium beside the coloured print of the promises made to Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque (38).
Naturally, such a long...
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...cates feelings without having to actually spell them out, surgically adding or removing pieces in a strategy designed to create a certain kind of feel in the story, much like the artist's use of the space surrounding an object in making that object visible. Through her recollections and musings just outside of the first person, Joyce constructs an open Eveline who could become many different characters, and a story malleable to varying time periods which could take on different tones, depending upon who the reader happens to be.
Works cited / consulted:
Joyce, James. "Eveline," from Dubliners. New York: Everyman's Library, Alfred A Knopf, 1991.
Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2000. "Joyce, James." Microsoft Corporation, 1997- 2000. http://encarta.msn.com
Oxford English Dictionary Online http://dictionary.oed.com
How employees of an organization think and work together creates an organizational culture. This organizational culture could be bad or good depending on many factors. As an example, on my own job we have several crews and each has its own culture. The stronger crews' tend to have better leadership, morale, and team structures that are built upon support for one another. This creates a strong crew culture where every member is thinking alike and working together toward the same goal with the best of intentions and greatest of efforts.
"Eveline" is the story of a young teenager facing a dilemma where she has to choose between living with her father or escaping with Frank, a sailor which she has been courting for some time. The story is one of fifteen stories written by James Joyce in a collection called "Dubliners". These stories follow a certain pattern that Joyce uses to express his ideas: "Joyce's focus in Dubliners is almost exclusively on the middle-class Catholics known to himself and his family"(the Gale Group). Joyce's early life, family background, and his catholic background appear in the way he writes these stories. "Where Joyce usually relates his stories to events in his life, there are some stories which are actually events that took place in his life" (Joyce, Stanislaus). James Joyce in his letter to Grant Richard writes:
Twentieth Century Interpretations of Dubliners. Prentice-Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: 1968. Torchiana, Donald T. Backgrounds for Joyce’s Dubliners. Allen & Unwin, Inc. Winchester, Massachusetts: 1986.
In James Joyce’s Dubliners, the theme of escape tends to be a trend when characters are faced with critical decisions. Joyce’s novel presents a bleak and dark view of Ireland; his intentions by writing this novel are to illustrate people’s reasons to flee Ireland. In the stories “Eveline, “Counterparts”, and the “Dead”, characters are faced with autonomous decisions that shape their lives. This forlorn world casts a gloomy shadow over the characters of these stories. These stories are connected by their similar portrayal of Ireland. They clearly represent Joyce’s views on people’s discontent with Ireland.
The short stories collected in Dubliners are mostly predecessors and characterizations of James Joyce's later works. "The Sisters" is no different. It, along with "An Encounter" and "Araby," are drawn from Joyce's personal memories and sentiments. The young boy and the characteristics of these short stories are an indirect sampling of Joyce's next published work, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, a novel mostly written from his own memory. "The Sisters," by James Joyce, is a story that mingles unworldly associations with an aim to teach with realistic endeavor, revealing truths of life and death.
James Joyce is widely considered to be one of the best authors of the 20th century. One of James Joyce’s most celebrated short stories is “Eveline.” This short story explores the theme of order and hazard and takes a critical look at life in Dublin, Ireland in the early 20th century. Furthermore, the themes that underlie “Eveline” were not only relevant for the time the story was wrote in, but are just as relevant today.
He follows her, walks silently past, not daring to speak, overcome with a confused sense of desire and adoration. In his mind she is both a saint to be worshipped and a woman to be desired. His eyes are "often full of tears.".(276) Walking with his aunt to shop on Saturday evenings he imagines that the girl's image accompanies him, and that he protects her in "places the most hostile to romance." (276) Here, Joyce reveals the epiphany in the story: "These noises converged in a single sensation of life for me: I imagined that I bore my chalice safely through a throng of foes."(276) He is unable to...
Kinicki, A., & Kreitner, R. (2009). Organizational behavior: Key concepts, skills and best practices (customized 4th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Thomas, Steve. "Dubliners by James Joyce." ebooks@Adelaide. The University of Adelaide, 23 Aug 2010. Web. 20 Jan 2011
Joyce, James. Dubliners. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The Portable James Joyce. Harry Levin, ed. Penguin. 1976, New York. Ulysses. Vintage, New York. 1961.
James Joyce began his writing career in 1914 with a series of realistic stories published in a collection called The Dubliners. These short literary pieces are a glimpse into the ‘paralysis’ that those who lived in the turn of the century Ireland and its capital experienced at various points in life (Greenblatt, 2277). Two of the selections, “Araby” and “The Dead” are examples of Joyce’s ability to tell a story with precise details while remaining a detached third person narrator. “Araby” is centered on the main character experiencing an epiphany while “The Dead” is Joyce’s experiment with trying to remain objective. One might assume Joyce had trouble with objectivity when it concerned the setting of Ireland because Dublin would prove to be his only topic. According the editors of the Norton Anthology of Literature, “No writer has ever been more soaked in Dublin, its atmosphere, its history, its topography. He devised ways of expanding his account of the Irish capital, however, so that they became microcosms of human history, geography, and experience.” (Greenblatt, 2277) In both “Araby” and “The Dead” the climax reveals an epiphany of sorts that the main characters experience and each realize his actual position in life and its ultimate permanency.
Kreitner, R. (2010). Organizational Behavior (Ninth Edition Ed.). New York: McGrawl - Hill Irwin. (Original work published 1989)
Peake, C.H. James Joyce: The Citizen and The Artist. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977. 56-109.
George, J.M. & Jones, G. R.(2005). Understanding and managing organizational behavior (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Custom Publishing.
Joyce surrounds the young protagonist with the darkest imagery as develops the exposition of the story. For instance, North Richmond Street, where the boy lives is “blind,” and “the short days of winter” darkened the streets where he and the other neighbor boys play making the houses seem “somber” (Joyce 741). However, all is not dark in the lad’s life, well not at first. Joyce’s use of light in association with Mangan’s sister, creates a sense of hope for this boy who is covered in darkness. In fact, whenever she appears she is bathed in light. For example, Joyce first describes her “waiting” for the boys, “her figure defined by the light” (741), and later while protagonist speaks with her about Araby, he notices that “the light from the lamp opposite [the] door caught the white curve of her neck; lit up her hair that rested there and, falling, lit up the hand upon the railing” (Joyce 742); she truly is the light of his life. In addition, Joyce could be hinting at her innocence and purity present in