Eveline and Her City: An Eco-critical and
Transcorporeal Reading through Field, Dust and Sea in James Joyce's Short Story
“Eveline”
Sweety Ali,
Post Graduate,
Jadavpur University,
West Bengal, India.
Abstract: Ecocriticism as an interdisciplinary field gives further
scopes for the analysis of literature and physical environment. The advent of
it gave sudden rise to scholarly re-interpretations of texts to estimate: where
Nature stands at an anthropocentric world. The text of Dubliners was being
composed at such a critical juncture when the city was suffering a lot: hugely
impacting the lives of people. Joyce through the portrayal of his characters
evokes the socio-ecological anxiety hovering through the air of Dublin. My
paper will deal with different aspects of Ecocriticism with special reference
to the short story "Eveline" from the collection Dubliners. The main
objective of my paper is to show how different ecological entities: (field,
dust and sea) partake and interact with Eveline's sharded psyche showcasing: anguish,
fear, horror and her ultimate struggle for existence in a ‘Human Age’.
Keywords: Dublin, Citification,
Eco-Gothic, Eco Materialism, Blue Humanities
Introduction:
Ecocriticism in simple terms is the study of nature and the humans. In the Anthropocene world the study has been quite popular due to over exploitation of natural assets. The theory has also been into a constant flux adding more dimensions to it ; from celebratory tone to a more interdisciplinary context with major concerns to climatic hazards. In recent decades, Eco critics also suggest that both human/ non human ecological species (like microbes, fungi, river, forest, animals) both live and co- evolve in symbiotic relationships.
The over arching idea of this study is the discussion of the Third wave of Ecocriticism with elements of Ecogothic and Blue Humanities: Citification of Playfield and Sea showcasing both Eco-Cosmopolitanism and Gothical abilities respectively. Besides, it will also engage with the Fourth wave of Ecocriticism, which focuses on transcorporeality— body, mind, and matter entangling with socio-ecological threats.
Dubliners is considered to be the
first important publication of Joycean opus. Joyce as a modern ‘Flaneur’ used
to stroll the lanes of Dublin; observing people and their activities. He was so
much in love with that city that it never really got out of him: following his
years in exile. His acute observations of the quotidian life are well portrayed
in works like Dubliners, A Portrait of an
Artist as a Young Man and a mammoth Ulysses;
all of which are his ‘away from home’
creation. The wide scholarly readership and re-interpretations of Joycean oeuvre
over the years are a testament to his keen mastery.
Dublin as Site of
‘Paralysis’
Dubliners (1904-1907) emerged at a time when the city was marked by considerable social and political instability. Joyce conveyed to Curran, his former classmate in one of his letters, “I am writing a series of epicleti—ten— for a paper. I have written one. I call the series Dubliners to betray the soul of that hemoplegia or paralysis which many consider a city” (Ellmann 163). Dubliners were deeply affected by the ongoing socio- political crisis and catholic surveillance; which almost altered the human demography. The Paralysis was evident as the city was infested with corrupters, drunkards, and faithlessness alongside absolute squalor. People were trying their best to define their national identity and acknowledge dramatic epiphanies: finding their inner paralysis linked with the social anarchy. Victorian suburbs grew while urban space was shrinking; forcing middle class people to share single rooms. “The river is lovely and filthy; Dublin is dear and dirty; so are the mind and body” (Ellmann 6). Weak Irish home rule led massive changes in the Geopolitics of Dublin—directly affecting the human ecology; resulting in rampant emigration, colonialism and rising industrialization. The textual references: “the Waters had gone back to England” and “He is in Melbournenow” — speaks of people's shifting to newer places for a better living. The city grew beyond its medieval panorama — popping up of new suburbs, bridges, factories for a new market economy.
Colours and Motifs
Colours are known for the vibrancy they represent. As Emerson famously quotes in his 1836 essay Nature that, “Nature always wears the colour of the spirit” (8). It suggests that one’s perception of the nature around him depends on personal moods and emotions. If anyone reads between the lines of "Eveline”, one observes gloomier undertones: reflecting Eveline's fragmented inner narratives. Environmental interactions become a part of the whole': canvassing characters' existential conflicts. The hues of dusk: emblematic of her fading childhood while the “close dark room” vividly describes her domestic confinement which she tries to break by absconding with her lover. The indistinct whiteness of the letters to her brother and father functions as a symbolic representation of her moral dilemma, recalling her mother’s injunction to preserve the unity of the family. The dusty abode and the yellowing in the photograph signify that her once blissful childhood has receded into a mere accumulation of memories. Climax of the story becomes intriguing as it overwhelms the readers. The sea gives cynical signaling to Eveline: ‘brownish' bags allude to the ennui of soldiers, ‘black boat’ with the mournful whistle almost seems to ‘drown her’. The imagery of the sea induces psychological distress which apprehends the fear of the unknown world to which she is about to depart.
Eveline's Home and the New World
Eveline, the eponymous protagonist is not an exception in this case. She is
engendered by the shifts taking place in and around her: “Tizzie Dunn was dead,
too, and the Waters had gone back to England. Everything changes” (Joyce 48).
She plans for an escape with Frank but in vain. Readers dive into her flow of consciousness;
finds her wavering between home and New World. Furthermore, the Sea
operates as an Eco-cosmopolitan body that facilitates human mobility in pursuit
of better economic opportunities amidst Irish Emigration crisis. These major
circumstances make to rethink her abilities as a young shop worker and homemaker;
further musing the possible remedies to cope with the transformed world. Though
the new world allures her, she cannot escape as she is chained to familial
obligations. Eveline’s final moment of fear comes when she realizes that if she
cannot escape her home, like her mother, adding more to her interpretive
crisis: hauntings of the dead and Frank’s tempting yarns. Brenda Maddoxscribes on
the first page of her biography, Nora: “In every young Irish mind, the question
of emigration is as inescapable as it has been since the Great Famine of the 1940's
(Norris 56).
Field as an Eco-Gothic
Agency
The semiotics of Eco-Gothic
mainly interprets one's repressed psyche through his/her unsettling
environmental conditions. In such disturbing situations, one finds himself to
be more alienated to a place which he initially belonged. This [un]belonging
further investigates the inner subconscious channelised through the external
events. Ecogothic narratives in modern context have diverse ranges: be it
monstrous projection of Nature in form of natural calamities or manmade
exploitations of natural resources.
Besides, it also scrutinizes severe psychological repercussions of those
changes on human health and how its possible readings pave the way for deeper
Eco critical inquiries. In their book Ecogothic (2013), Andrew Smith and
William Hughes describe the Gothic as a form which perfectly captures the
anxieties due to the changes in climate and environment, further illustrating a
nexus for the study of Eco-critical theory, literary criticism and political
process (5).
The "field" metaphor invokes speculative situations of Eco- gothic in
the short story Eveline. The open field was a childhood asset of their colony
which gets citified and this inculcates in her deep sensations of ecocide,
citification and destitution. This incident eventually triggered her inner
psychosis and mental trauma; she is haunted by her blissful childhood memories.
This effective view, where the encroachment of the playfield psychologically wounds
has socio ecological dimensions to it. Neil Campbell in the chapter ‘A New
Gentleness: Affective Ficto-Rationality' further elaborating Guattari's Three Ecologies
pens that, “the ecological crisis can be traced to a more general crisis of the
social, political and existential” (71). Colonialism and industrialization
begets environmental crisis. Belfast becomes a booming industrial hub due
to huge colonial investments from Britain. Eveline says, “Then a man from
Belfast bought the field and built houses in it—not like their little brown
houses but bright brick houses with shining roofs” ( Joyce 42). Eveline is thus
not only a character representing the inner conflicts but also a lived modality
shaped by histories of Dublin's social production and ecological depletion.
The “imaginative field” serves as a mirror to Eveline's transition from
childhood (innocence) to adulthood (maturity). Her mortal pains of being
disconnected with her dead mother, childhood friends and brothers; facing an
abusive father flashes back to us. Emily Carr in the chapter “The riddle was
the angel in the house: Towards an American ecofeminist Gothic”, contended that
initially women's gothic fiction not only challenged the parameters human and
non human coexistence but also juxtaposed them. She further says “Distortion,
dislocation and disruption become the norm, and the domestic and the grotesque,
the alluring and the terrible coexist” (12).
Dust Particles as Remnants of Memory and
Decay
Eveline's repeated gesture of “leaning her head against the window curtain” and “inhaling the odour of dusty cretonne” has latent symbolism of socio-ecological anxiety. Dust, grains present in household objects, nostrils and fabric fibers - are traces of both body – nature decay; underscoring Eveline's stifling domestic life. The dusty domestic ruins: ‘yellowing’ photograph and ‘broken harmonium’ are also testimonials to familial memory.
Dust no longer remains an inactive agent but becomes a “storied
matter” in the context of Material Ecocriticism, while contesting the Cartesian
dualisms. Body matters (decay, dust , odours) have their own agencies and it is
through that agency we examine the worldly conditions we live in. Iovino and
Oppermann in their book Material
Ecocriticism; instigates Karen Barad’s idea that matter and meaning are
infused inextricably together and
‘Mattering’ also becomes significant as both of substance and significance (4).
Dust alongside its putrescence also signifies the ecological corruption, fading
childhood and her tedious life. Matter with all of its dichotomies (body-mind,
nature -culture), begins to enmesh and evolves new hybridized relations through
which we will understand the notions of the decentered world.
The Sea as a Sentiment of Myth and Peril
In the backdrop of Blue Humanities, Sea becomes a life form shaping human identities, cultural narratives and economy. Sea as an animate force actively narrates Dublin's socio-economical issues. People were immigrating via Sea to faraway lands to seek newer possibilities. This profoundly impacts Eveline, as the emigration of loved ones fractures her sense of memories.
Readers are confronted with Eveline’s indecisiveness whether or not to cross the sea for a new start. This dilemma reverberates her moral and psychological crisis. She as a female figure is entitled as a caregiver, taking over the duties of her family. On the other hand, Frank fabricates stories of sailor life: “A large part of Frank’s fairy–tale narrative is his story of life on the seas; he sailed through the Straits of Magellan and he told [Eveline] stories of the terrible Patagonians” (Wieczorek 71). Her father's warning suggests sinistral lives of “sailor chaps". Sea, an ecological entity, thus becomes a dynamic space where mythic narratives and inner turmoils are enacted.
Jimmy Packham and David Punter in their article “Oceanic studies and the gothic deep” states: “Instead, language most closely approximates the sea when sensitive to such things as the apparent disjunction and invisible boundary between the furious waves of a storm-tossed surface and the seemingly serene depths; when, that is, language embraces the sea’s multiplicity and ‘ungraspable’ qualities – qualities aligning it with ways of speaking about that keystone of Gothic thought, the uncanny (19). This simplifies that the unfathomable and turbulent nature of oceans evoke the state of Gothic. Eveline feels as if the sea is drowning her, “All the seas of the world tumbled about her heart. He was drawing her into them” (Joyce 48). The idea of crossing the sea causes nauseating sickness to her: making her almost like a “helpless animal”. Eveline's Thalassophobia and splanchnic discomforts states that she is much afraid of the unknown world which Frank wanted to introduce. In conclusion, Sea, an ecological entity dominates her decision and shows us her struggle for existence in her hometown, Dublin.
Conclusion
In sum, James Joyce’s short story “Eveline” is a subtle reflection of the socio-ecological threats engrossing Dublin. It is through the fragmented, sub conscious narratives of Eveline we get the see the restlessness of the Dubliners. The urban landscapes were shrinking and people were forced to emigrate. Drawing upon Eco critical concerns, Eveline’s inner psyche was tormented by the changes around her. Ecocriticism as a discourse gives agency to natural entities; it is through them we estimate how ecologies are at thereat or shaping our identities altogether. Field, Dust and Sea, as signifiers of Nature, thus actively participate in Eveline’s distress; redefining existential struggles of the Anthropocene.
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