Stagnation in Eveline Anonymous College

The choices manufactured on a day-to-day basis effect every choice and action in the future. Unfortunately, these choices can be based off different constrictions and outside forces. Throughout the years ones gender could play a extensive part in stagnation and the lack of ability for one to make choices for themselves. Many live in despair about what might happen in the future based on decision they make in that moment. It is the apprehension of unknown that leads one to believe the right choice is oppressive and possibly inaccessible. In James Joyce’s short story, “Eveline,” the narrator uses a sense of guilt, along with images of dust and decay, to expose Eveline’s sense of paralysis deriving from restricted options as a woman in the twentieth century.

The dust found throughout Eveline’s home directly correlates with how she feels. James Joyce instantaneously mentions a sense of inertia in this short story. It starts off with Eveline “leaned against the window curtains and in her nostrils was the order of dusty cretonne” (Joyce 3). Dust is typically found in places that are often abandoned, forgotten about, and no longer given any attention. In other words, exactly how Eveline feels through her life. Her favorite sibling...