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Eveline

Summary:
The narrator, a sad widow and mother of two children, thinks about her past, while she is waiting for her daughter Dee (also called Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo) who comes back home to present her friend (Asalamalakim, also called Hakim-a-barber) to her mother and her sister Maggie, who looks like the narrator and is going to get married (to John Thomas). As they talk about the family and the heritage, the narrator decides to give the Grandma Dee quilts to Maggie and not to Dee, because she does not agree with Dee's conception of the family.

Analysis of one literary element:
I would like to talk about contrasts in Everyday Use. The narrator always plays with a balance between imaginary and reality. This literary way is used at the beginning, with the description of the yard, which "is not just a yard. It is like an extended living room". This literary element is really important when it deals with the characters themselves. For example, the narrator first describes herself with the comparison to a TV program and then tell us the truth: "In real life I am a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands". In the same way: "[Maggie] will marry John Thomas [...] and then I'll be free to sit here and I guess just sing church songs to myself. Although I never was a good singer". Dee is first presented in the same way: "She wrote me once that no matter where we ‘choose' to live, she will manage to see us. But she will never bring her friends. [...] when Dee have any friends?". This balance deals with the role and place of the reader, but also with the writing process. Indeed, the writer constructs her text, writes and then rubs out, corrects what she has written before our eyes. Thus this literary element is also a metaphor of the writing process.

"Eveline" a short story by James Joyce takes place in Ireland; is a tale of a young woman's (Eveline) hard unhappy life. "Eveline" can be considered a tragedy and comedy with a twist. Eveline, the main...