A Guided Epiphany By Mary Joyce - 997 Words

A Guided Epiphany In â€Å"Eveline† the main character, Eveline, lives a terrible life with a stern father, a miserable job, and a dreary home. When she is given the opportunity to leave her awful life and start a new life with her partner Frank, she rejects the offer and stays in Ireland. Immediately this presents the reader with an apparent paradox. Why did Eveline stay? Wasn’t her life terrible? It is not until the reader digs a little deeper into â€Å"Eveline† does the paradox solve itself. Joyce uses various literary techniques to justify why Eveline did not leave with Frank. In order to solve the paradox of Eveline, Joyce uses sentence structure to show the importance of various characters to Eveline. The father in Eveline is given a lengthy amount of the story and longer sentences. Sentences such as â€Å"He said she used to squander the money, †¦ he was usually fairly bad on Saturday night.† (Joyce 65-68), and â€Å"When they were growing up he had never gone for her †¦ for her dead mother s sake.† (55-58) contain forty words and forty eight words respectfully. Frank at the beginning is given slightly longer sentences at his first introduction. The third sentence in Frank’s introduction, â€Å"She was to go away with him by the night-boat to be his wife and to live with him in Buenos Ayres where he had a home waiting for her.† (80-82), is thirty words long. As the story progresses Frank’s sentences becoming increasingly shorter and shorter. After Eveline remembers her father caring forShow MoreRelatedWilli am Joyce s Eveline - A Guided Epiphany1014 Words   |  5 PagesA Guided Epiphany In â€Å"Eveline,† the main character, Eveline, lives a terrible life with a stern father, a miserable occupation, and a dreary home. When she is offered the chance to leave her abysmal life and start a new one with her lover Frank, she rejects this proposition and remains in Ireland. Immediately this presents the reader with a paradox. Why did Eveline stay? Wasn’t her life terrible? It is not until the reader digs a little deeper into â€Å"Eveline† does the paradox solve itself. JoyceRead MoreSmugging in the Square: Homosexuality as a Literary Device in James Joyces A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man.3689 Words   |  15 Pagessaid of the menacing literary masterpiece that is A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is that the gender issues Joyce so surreptitiously weaves into Stephan Dedalus’s character create sizable obstacles for the reader to overcome. Joyce expertly composes a feminine backdrop in which he can mold Stephan to inexplicably beco me innately homosexual. As Laurie Teal points out â€Å"†¦ Joyce plays with gender inversion as a uniquely powerful tool of characterization.†(63) Stephan’s constant conflict with himself