The document provides a literary comparison of the short stories "Eveline" by James Joyce and a story from Susan Minot's collection "Lust & Other Stories." It summarizes that both stories focus on the tragedies in the lives of women who lack love and self-esteem. While Joyce's character Eveline fails to escape her domestic life, Minot's unnamed character fails through self-victimizing and promiscuous sexual acts. The document analyzes similarities in themes, narratives techniques, and the overall tragic tones between the two stories.

1. Running head: LITERARY COMPARISON 1
Abstract
Susan Minot wrote a story of disillusionment of a young teenage woman, the manifest of all
sexually self-victimized women of the present. In “Eveline” which is the part of “Dubliners”
collection, James Joyce describes the heroine’s traumatic discrepancies between possible future
escape from despair and discontent of her daily life and staying in her comfort zone at home. The
opportunity to explore each story is meaningful because it helps to comprehend the
psychological problems that are familiar to many women, not taking into account their social
statuses. The paper investigates into the matter of both stories, researches the comparison and
contrast between them. The writer uses only the primary sources in his research, thus the
information in the paper is authenticable.

2. LITERARY COMPARISON 2
Literary Comparison
Introduction
Seventy years lie between the creation of Joyce’s “Eveline” in 1914 year of the World
War I and Susan Minot’s “Lust & Other Stories” in 1984. The years marked with impressive
changes in the world are of small importance because women worldwide have always been
struggling for their success and happiness. Eveline, originated from a middle-class generation,
has been dissatisfiedly looking for happiness or it is better to say for an escape from
unhappiness. Susan Minot’s unnamed young female is suffering; while studying at the boarding
school, she had promiscuous sexual contacts with men that led to a desperate feeling of futility.
Both authors reflect on the failures of two women on their way to happiness, the fallacy of
chosen methods to achieve happiness, there is a connection between two stories.
Comparison and Contrast
The connection between two stories lies in the fact that both are women lack love and
self-esteem, and they fail to find it, doing all the wrong things. Thus, a girl in “Lust & Other
Stories” continuously repeats taking part in self-debasing and self-victimized promiscuous sexual
acts that would never have led to a deep love. Eveline’s irony is her tremendous desire to escape
from domestic abuses and become happy in her marriage with fiancée - Argentine sailor Frank
and to flee away to Buenos Aires with him, but at the very last moment, Eveline abandons Frank
and chooses her stable self-sacrificing life at home to a possible new life in love with Frank. She
continues to fail, living in the old, familiar to her, style. Girls make the same mistakes, they
doom to failure. The theme of “Lust & Other Stories” shows the factual differences between
female and male nature and demonstrates girl’s desperate desire to find the love she lacks with
her numerous partners. The theme of “Eveline” is her paralysis, indecisiveness on the way to
new life. In addition, both characters liked to mediate. A lusty girl used to think over her sexual

3. LITERARY COMPARISON 3
and emotional experiences, Eveline ponders on her family life before her mother’s death, how
good her father could have been, and remembering their familial obligations.
The structure of “Lust & Other Stories” consists of a number of short stories. Each of
them tells a reader about sexual intercourse of a girl with her new partner. The structure of
sentences changes through the development of the story. At first, they are short and the words
used are joyous, closer to the end, the sentences become longer, as if the women are trying to
find a way to end up her sufferings but can no longer do so. The words are negative, as the
feelings are already destructing and the boys seem like parts of the body: “They scratch their
balls, stare at the ceiling” (Minot, 2010). “Eveline” sentences have similar structure. Girl dreams
of better life and respect she lacked at home but then breaks it off. A “Lust & Other Stories” is
told in first person where the main hero uses a pronoun “we”: “In his illegal car, we drove to the
reservoir”; however, the second point of view is used too through the usage of pronoun “you”:
“You do everything they want” (Minot, 2010). Unlike “Lust & Other Stories”, “Eveline” is told
from the third point of view, mixed with dialogues. She thinks whether she should have gone out
with Frank or not, and her indecisiveness and fright of unknown win over. She lucks self-
assurance, thus, “lusty girl” used to fling in new intercourses almost empty-headed. It is her own
way of masochism as opposed to masochism in “Eveline”, whose father keeps in “danger of her
father’s violence”, and “begun to threaten her and say what he'd do to her only for her dead
mother’s sake” (Joyce, n. d.). Her mother willed Eveline to take care of household, that is why
her father’s behavior was somehow ironic. The title “Lust & Other Stories” presumes irony: all
the time the girl is looking for affection and all she gets is lust. The overall tones of both stories
are tragic.
Conclusion

4. LITERARY COMPARISON 4
Despite the fact that Minot’s “Lust & Other Stories” and Joyce’s “Eveline” were written
at different times, both stories focus on tragedies in women lives. Both authors used the vivid
narrative techniques including flashbacks, different sentence structures and stylistic devices to
pass the theme of each story. The failure of the methods to achieve happiness, and maybe lack of
support and fulfillment of close people have led those women to paralysis. They could release
themselves but lacking love and fulfillment, they have locked themselves in a vicious circle.
Eveline’s tragedy is a tragedy of indecisiveness and fear of unknown, while “lusty” girl’s doom
is a self-victimized masochistic behavior. Both stories have much in common.

5. LITERARY COMPARISON 5
References
Joyce, J. (n.d.). Eveline. Retrieved from http://bookmate.com/r#d=vVS1Hp0f
Minot, S. (2010). Lust & other stories. New York: Open Road Media.

6. LITERARY COMPARISON 5
References
Joyce, J. (n.d.). Eveline. Retrieved from http://bookmate.com/r#d=vVS1Hp0f
Minot, S. (2010). Lust & other stories. New York: Open Road Media.