As a good
modernist, Joyce does not employ an omniscient narrator to hover over the narrative and tell us
what to think. Instead, we have to interpret 's motivations from her own thoughts and what we
learn about her life.
First, we know she has a constricted, miserable
existence in Dublin. She dislikes her job as a shopgirl, where she is bullied, and at home she
is a virtual slave to her abusive father, to whom she gives her entire paycheck every week. She
is afraid not to do this. Frank, and the chance to go to Buenos Aires, looks like a good out for
her.
However, at the last minute she panics, and her dead mother's words
return to her: They are "Derevaun Seraun! Derevaun Seraun!" They mean in Gaelic that
"at the end of pleasure there is pain."
We are told too that
"her mothers life laid its spell on the very quick of her being."
Eveline knows this is the moment of truth, so she prays "to God to direct her, to
show her what was her duty."
In these words, we get a strong clue as
to...
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