" (Joyce, 22). The narrator feels a sense of helplessness here, how he knows not a way to confess his "confused adoration." One morning, Mangan's sister asks the narrator whether or not he plans to go to Araby, a Dublin bazaar. Although she cannot attend, he decides that the way to win her affection is to take the train to Araby and buy her something. He becomes more and more obsessed with her and cannot think of anything but her as time passes after their brief conversation. On the morning of Araby, the narrator asks his uncle for money for a train ride to the bazaar, and his uncle says he will give it to him after he returns home. As time passes, the feeling of helplessness grows, as he fears that soon Araby will be closing and he will not be able to bring Mangan's sister anything. When the narrator's uncle arrives, he rushes to the train but gets to Araby only as all of the shops have closed. He feels primarily enraged and full of anger, which turns into another sense of helplessness, as his chances, however small they may have been to begin with, with Mangan's sister faded away.
The short story of "Eveline" portrays a similar sense of helplessness and the oppression of society and how these can lead someone to want to "flee" away from all of it. Eveline tells the story of a young girl, beaten and abused by her father and brother. She feels an obligation to take on the role her mother once played after her mother passed away, doing the house chores and looking after her father and brother, who abuse her greatly. Eveline takes on a lover, Frank, and plans to flee the grasp of her wretched oppression to Buenos Aires with him. On the night they are supposed to leave, Eveline cannot board the ship and "escape" (Joyce, 33) with Frank. She feels a sense of paralysis on the docks, extremely helpless. She decides to go back with her father and brother, where she will be abused for the rest of her life as the matriarchal slave of the household.
