Trading Love for Death in EvelineLike "Araby", "Eveline" is a story of young love, but unlike Mangan's sister, Eveline is already she was courted and conquered by Frank, who takes her away to marry him and «to live with him in Buenos Ayres» (49). Or did he? When she meets him at the station and they prepare to board the ship, Eveline suddenly decides that she cannot go with Frank, because "he would drown her" in "all the seas of the world" (51). But Eveline's rejection of Frank is not only a rejection of love, but also a rejection of a new life abroad and an escape from the harsh life at home. And water, as a practical method of escape, as well as a symbol of both rejuvenation and emotional vitality, works in multifaceted ways to show all that Eveline loses through her fear and lack of courage. By not immersing herself in those "seas of the world that collapse around her heart" (51), Eveline abandons escape, life, and love for the past, duty, and death. Like many of the Dubliners' stories, moving east in "Eveline" is associated with new life. But for Eveline, sailing east with Frank is as much an escape as it is the promise of something better. From the beginning of the story, she is passive and tired (46) and remembers old neighbors like "The Waters" who have since fled east "to England" (47). He can't wait to "go...away like the others" (47). She admits that she will not miss her work (47) and that at nineteen, without the previous protection of her older brothers, she begins to feel "in danger from her father's violence" (48). Her father takes the little money she earns and she also takes care of her two younger brothers (48). The sound of a barrel organ playing an Italian melody is at the same time a call to her fr...... middle of paper ......and, and "maybe even love" and "she had the right to happiness" (50). Yet Eveline isn't sure she'll find love with Frank, just as she doesn't know what kind of life they will have together. The adult world of desire, longing, fulfillment, and heartbreak churns in the "seas of the world that collapsed around her heart" (51) and this unknown world of emotional vitality and power is as frightening to Eveline as the physical reality of sailing sailing. on the other side of the world. In this realm he could drown, yes, but he could also learn to swim. Yet by refusing to "test the waters," Eveline condemns herself to a life without any emotional satisfaction. In the rite of passage from adolescence to adulthood, Eveline feels only that the transformative experience will "drown" her old self and is unable to adequately imagine a new self emerging from the waves..