In the following essay excerpt, Ingersoll discusses the idea of Eveline embodying the "stigma of femininity."

James Joyce made the intent of his organization of Dubliners clear in his famous letter to Grant Richards:

My intention was to write a chapter of the moral history of my country and I chose Dublin for the scene because that city seemed to me the centre of paralysis. I tried to present it to the indifferent public under four of its aspects: childhood, adolescence, maturity and public life. The stories are arranged in this order. (5 May 1906)

Joyce's classification of the quartet beginning with "Eveline" and ending with "The Boarding House" as stories of "adolescence" seems patently problematic. At 19, Eveline is technically "adolescent"; however, the central characters of the other three stories in this quartet—"After the Race," "Two Gallants," and "The Boarding House"— are hardly adolescents, unless we...