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Essay Assignment 3

Uploaded: 5 years ago
Contributor: kmchorses
Category: English Writing
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Kendra Casper Writing 121 December 4, 2018 Essay Assignment 3 “Derevaun Seraun!” James Joyce’s narrative, Dubliners, addresses the suffocating cloak of blindness and disappointment that young women of Ireland discover when they come of age to create a future for themselves. In 1914, when the narrative was written, Joyce expressed his strong feelings that the religious Irish upbringing imprisoned women’s passions. Joyce continues to imply that religious expectations, ideals of domesticity, and belief that all citizens will develop a strong sense of patriotic pride places the young citizens of Ireland in a state of paralysis as they fight inwardly against the expectations that Ireland has set for them. In Joyce’s narratives “Eveline,” the main character actively romanticizes to obtain both true love and freedom from caring from her father; a future that does not align with Ireland’s societal ideals. “Eveline” describes the static life of a young woman who is struggling to recover from the death of her mother. At the time of her mother’s death, Eveline realized that she was on the same monotonous path that her mother and every other Irish woman was destined to walk. Her tasks included cleaning the house, working to support her father, and serving as the emotional backbone for her family, just as her mother had done before her. The idea that the rest of her life will be devoted to physical and emotional servitude is restrictive to Eveline, who desperately wants to live a guilt-free and exhilarating existence. In fact, Eveline has her sights on a sailor named Frank, whom she adamantly believes is her ticket to freedom. However, Frank is from foreign lands and not approved as a suitable suitor for Eveline based upon her father’s objections. After all, her father forbade his daughter from seeing Frank, and instilled a fear in Eveline that such a “sailor chap” (Joyce 32) would leave her lonely and without purpose. Eveline is afraid of these consequences of running away from Ireland’s expectations with Frank when she remembers the last words of her dying mother, “Derevaun Seraun!” (Joyce 33). The phrase is closely translated to “the end of pleasure is pain” and “the end of song is raving madness.” These words greatly contribute to Eveline’s decision to abandon her dreams of freedom and exhilaration out of fear of being abandoned in the future by her lover. A similar predicament is presented in Joyce Carol Oates narrative “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”. Just as Eveline’s own personal passions and desires for a new life were ignored, fifteen-year-old Connie was emotionally exiled by her family and verbally humiliated by her mother. Connie lived in an anxious and uncertain state, striving to achieve “trashy daydreams” (Oates 310) that do not align with the monotonous and pre-destined path that her family and society have assigned to her. These expectations for Connie’s life are unfairly suffocating and explain why Connie was not able to resist Arnold’s slightly pervasive interest in her for very long. Arnold’s insistence that Connie run away with him was flattering to the young girl, who had spent her entire existence being treated as an outsider by her own family. For the first time in her life, someone was showing an insistent and seemingly passionate awareness towards her. After a lifetime of receiving condescending judgement from her mother, as shown when she says “What the hell stinks? Hair spray? You don't see your sister using that junk," (Oates 310) Connie was anxious to find an escape where she could live her life in any way that she chose. To Connie, it was not relevant that Arnold had begun to prove himself as an untrustworthy and a demeaning criminal. Instead, she discovered the relief she had long since been craving in the fact that a wandering soul had chosen her and was going to open her eyes to a vast and new world. Eveline similarly craved to abandon her life that was structured by the Irish church and her family obligations to run away with her lover overseas. After all, Eveline wondered “why she should be unhappy?” (Joyce 33) just because her mother wished for her to support and hold their family together. Both young women spent their entire adolescence being trained to follow society’s expectations of self-deprecation and servitude to their families. Connie and Eveline dreaded the idea of living a humble life, where they would not be allowed to make decisions based upon their own desires and longings. On the contrary, Eveline did not choose to run away from her society and responsibilities like Connie did. Connie’s tale was based on life in the United States during the early 1960s, which was an era filled with the cravings of the “bad boy” ideology and pop culture. Therefore, Connie did not live a life that was as religiously sheltered as Eveline did in Ireland. Before Arnold, Connie had already dreamed of the “vast sunlit reaches of the land” (Oates 325) that the rebelling boy could offer her. Due to this, it was much easier for Arnold to convince Connie that he could provide her with a life of carefree bliss that she had been envisioning and craving for all her life. Arnold was also able to entice Connie into running away with him by targeting and providing for her deepest desires of comfort and freedom with a “smile [that] assured her that everything was fine” (Oates 314). On the other hand, the men and women of Ireland actively sheltered their children and fought strongly to protect the set gender norms for young boys and girls. Irish culture expects young women of the church to live humbly and serve their families with the practice of domesticity. Significantly different from Connie, Eveline has been taught by her mother that working her life away to protect her family was her destiny. Eveline was terrified that her mother was correct when she told her daughter that “the end of pleasure is pain,” and that one-day Eveline would regret her decision to run away with her sailor. Eveline considers her potential future with Frank liberating as “all the seas of the world tumbled about her heart” (Joyce 34). This is symbolic, as Evelyn recognizes the possibility that fleeing with Frank overseas would provide her with a life free from suffocating family obligations, despite the guilt that she would feel in her soul after abandoning her relatives. However, in the end, her mother’s words came back to haunt her, and Eveline feared that Frank “would drown her” (Joyce 34) and cause her endless amounts of anguish due to her selfish indulgence of pleasure. In the final moments before making her decision, the teachings of Eveline’s childhood and her engrained fear of the unknown prohibited the young woman from liberating herself. The Catholic church, prominent in Ireland, encourages guilt, sacrifice, and lifelong promises in accordance to an individual’s family life and religious practices. Generations of families respected these ideals and beliefs, entrapping Eveline in that very same belief system due to her strong Irish upbringing. Just as her mother had sacrificed her dreams and life for the Catholic values and her families, Eveline feels obligated to commit to this same lifestyle, as she has never known any other way to live. To do this properly, Eveline’s father had “forbidden her to have anything to say” (Joyce 32) to the sailor she had fallen in love with, to not allow his daughter to have an escape from her upbringing. The restrictions all throughout her childhood has taught Eveline to be passive and obey her parents, trapping her in a state of paralysis and defeat. Free thought is discouraged in the Catholic church, and Eveline feels obligated to serve both her family and satisfy the religious obligations that were placed upon her shoulders the day she was born. After being raised in such an environment, Eveline had learned how to be strong and supportive to men such as her father, who were struggling with the feelings of emasculation due to the colonization of men like Frank. Such responsibility had caused Eveline to have a sense of pride in her “hard work” (Joyce 32), and this conceit factored in to the young woman’s decision to remain confined and paralyzed in Ireland. In fact, divorce was not legal in Ireland until 1995, giving married women no other choice than to work in the home for the remainder of their lives and teach their children the same practices that they have been raised by. The Catholic church’s religious standards were deeply woven into Ireland’s social expectations, restricting Eveline’s ability to think for herself or pursue her own personal passions. In the two narratives “Eveline” and “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, both main characters were raised in a suffocating environment with families who completely disregarded the young girl’s personal beliefs and passions. However, in James Joyce’s story, Eveline chooses not to run away with her lover due to the suffocating nature of the Catholic church that she has been raised in to follow and abide by Ireland’s expectations of domesticity. The ideals that young women are expected to devote their lives to serving their families and forget their own desires puts young Eveline into a state of paralysis as she fears her mother’s parting words to her, “Derevaun Seraun!”. Eveline is unable to step aboard the boat to freedom with her lover, Frank, out of the fear that her liberation and contentedness will only lead to endless amounts of anxiety, guilt, and suffering if she were to walk away from the only life she has ever known. Works Cited Oates, Joyce Carol. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Fiction: A Pocket Anthology. Ed. R.S. Gwynn. Sixth Edition. , 2009. Print. Joyce, James, 1882-1941. Dubliners. New York, N.Y. :New American Library, 1991. Print. LitCharts. “Catholic Values and Confinement Theme Analysis.” LitCharts. Shmoop Editorial Team. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Setting.” Shmoop, Shmoop University, 11 Nov. 2008.

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