"Eveline" James Joyce

Eveline leads a busy, work-filled life where she is always taking care of something, and then a sailor comes along and offers to take her away with him. This is her chance to escape, and she has many reasons to accept this offer. Throughout the entirety of her life, her father has been an abusive figure that always has something negativc to say. Her mother died when she was younger; therefore, she is left with the responsibility to take care of the house and family when she gets home from her day job. She works at the Stores with a boss that is never happy and always nagging. When contemplating whether she should stay or go, she begins thinking about the night that her mother passed. Her mother repeated the the phrase, "Derevaun Seraun! Derevaun Seraun!" In Gaelic, this phrase is translated to either "the end of pleasure is pain" or "the end of the song is raving madness." Either way, this vision haunted her and pushed her to want to leave even more. All of these present circumstances make it desirable for her to leave home.