Mary Joyce s Eveline The Classical Signs Of A Victim

Children do not have the option to come into this world. They come into this world because of either of their parents’ choice or because of their mistake. However, once children are born, their parents have the opportunity to write whatever they wish to write on their clean slate –â€Å"life.† Indeed, some kids grow up in a safe environment and have loving parents, but some children are reared by the parents who themselves grew up in an abusive family and do not know how to raise kids. Abuse does not see race, gender, or stature, yet it happens every day in a close - knit relationship. Abuse can be so subtle that it slowly chips away a person’s identity, and the person does not even realize that they are in an abusive relationship. In James Joyce’s, â€Å"Eveline,† Eveline exhibits the classical signs of a victim to abuse. She lacks self-confidence due to her father’s verbal, emotional, and financial abuse. Eveline lacks confidence due her father s verbal abuse. Eveline is nineteen years old, yet she is afraid of her father. Although Eveline s dad does not abuse her physically, he threatens to beat her. Eveline believed he would do so because, since childhood, she witnessed â€Å"her father used often to hunt them in out of the field with his blackthorn stick† (Joyce 597). When Eveline s dad finds out about her affair with Frank and forbids Eveline to meet him, Eveline lacks the courage to profess her love for Frank openly to her father. She starts meeting Frank secretly. Her father