Life Like Eveline example essay topic

"The Answer Is No"/ "Eveline"The Answer Is No" and "Eveline" are short stories based on the development into womanhood, of two young ladies. The stories are about a certain time in their lives in which they had to make real important decisions, that would have changed their lives forever. For many years Eveline had taken care of her family almost by herself. She worked hard both in the house and at work.

Eveline cleaned the house once a week, she made sure the kids that had been left to her charge went to school regularly and ate regularly: all this because her mother who would have carried some of the work load for her was dead. She was left with her father and brother, whom, due to his church decorating business, was always somewhere in the country. Even after all her hard worker father is still not too accommodating to her. He is said to have threatened her, but would not do anything her only for her dead mother's sake. I don't know anyone who would like to live a life like Eveline was, full of responsibility and no reward or acknowledgement for all her deeds. So it wasn't hard for Eveline to make up her mind to runaway and marry her lover, Frank.

Frank, a sailor, whom she was secretly seeing, because her father forbade her to talk to him, told her interesting stories about places he had been and places he would take her to if she married him. Eveline, who was just a little bit over nineteen years of age, was ready to explore another life: a life full of adventure, a life full of beauty a life full of love, a far cry from her life of hardship and unhappiness. She was ready to leave, she had written letters to her father and her brother, informing them of her departure. Getting to the time for her to leave, she sat by the window and started thinking about her family. She realized that as her father is getting old he would miss her when she was gone. She also thought of her brother Harry too, even though her favorite brother, Ernest, was dead she still liked him.

These thoughts started to form doubt of her running away in her mind, but what really made her decide to stay and take care of her responsibilities was when she remembered her promise to her mother to keep their home together as long as she could. In "The Answer Is No", our protagonist's, who is not given a name but Miss as her students called her, maturity is attained over a period of time. It was an accumulation of knowledge, that comes with growing up. While still a child of fourteen years, she was caroused, by her private tutor, who was twenty-five years her senior, into having sex with him. Due to her innocence she had not known what had really happened, so she asked him. His response was, "Don't be frightened or sad.

Keep it to yourself and I'll come and propose to you the day you come of age". p. 592. As a little girl she did not say anything, but as she became older she acquired knowledge about sex and the consequences of what had happened. When he came back to propose to her she had no problem in saying no to him, because all she felt for him was disgust for taking her innocence. These ladies in the stories had to make decisions that would affect their lives forever and they handled them quite well.

The only difference was the way they handled their affairs. Eveline weighed out her opto ins first before making her decision, while Miss did not really have to think twice about her decision.