Naturalism in “Eveline”

    Naturalism emphasizes the effects of environmental and social circumstances on people’s actions and behaviors. “Eveline,” a short story by James Joyce about a young lady who is torn between her duty to her family and her desire for escape, is filled with naturalist elements such as third-person point of view narration, lack of choice due to social or environmental constraint, and reacts against sentimental romantic literature.
    “Eveline” is initially narrated from a detached third person point of view which transitions into Eveline’s point of view. In the second paragraph, the narrator presents readers with the events occurring outside the window Eveline is leaning on: “few people passed. The man out of the last house passed on his way home, she heard his footstep clacking along the concrete pavement and afterwards crunching on the cider path before the new red houses.”
Then, the narrator gets into Eveline’s mind and shows the reader a happier period when “there used to be a field [outside the window] in which [Eveline and her siblings] used to play every evening with other people’s children” and progresses into Eveline’s in-depth thought process as she turns around “the room, reviewing all its familiar objects,” and contemplates her predicament. Through this narration technique, the reader is able to understand Eveline’s predicament and sympathize with her situation.
      The reader is at this juncture introduced to Eveline’s dilemma: her “brothers and sisters were all grown up her mother was dead,” and “[her father] had begun to threaten her and say what he would do to her only for her dead mother’s sake. And no she had nobody to protect her.” The reader realizes that Eveline is caught in the middle of a bad domestic violence which might include sexual abuse. The lack of a comma or “and” between “grown up” and “her mother” in the first quote transmits Eveline’s feeling of helplessness on the reader. The narrator presents Eveline eloping with Frank as an escape from such drudgery life: “She would be married--she, Eveline. People would treat her with respect then. She would not be treated as her mother had been.” However, at the end, Eveline gives up on her plan of escape as she remembers “the last night of her mother’s illness.” She passes her decision making to God as “she prayed to God to direct her, to show her what’s her duty… she kept moving her lips in silent fervent prayer.” She becomes dead and lifeless, turns to Frank, her fiancé, and “her eyes gave him no sign of love, or farewell or recognition.” Although Eveline desires change, she is boxed in by her circumstances and limited choices. Her sense of responsibility sabotages her plan for escape and she had no choice but to become a zombie.
     Although the story seems to hinge on the lady in distress and knight in shining armor who might save her from a dreadful life, it isn’t so. Even though Eveline thinks that “She must escape! Frank would save her. He would give her life, perhaps love, too,” she isn’t rescued by a man. She turns her back to Frank and Buenos Aires. She becomes a lifeless human, “passive, like a helpless animal” and “a pitiful version of her mother.” The end is dark and open-ended, filled with uncertainty. The reader doesn’t even know if Eveline returns home. These developments are anti-romantic and naturalist in nature.
     With the use of third person narration and the symbolism of Eveline’s final decision, “Eveline” is a naturalist literary work.