At the end of James Joyce's "Eveline," Eveline suddenly realizes that she is unwilling to leave her life in Dublin for a life of international travel and true love. This realization is also known as an epiphany, and it is probably the single most important concept in the stories of Dubliners.
Joyce's stories generally follow an individual, or at least a small group of people, wandering through fairly normal situations. What ties these stories together is that each of them involves an epiphany, which is a sudden realization or deep understanding about life. For the most part, these epiphanies are pretty gloomy, as they involve a deeper understanding into the stagnant nature of a character's life. In "Eveline," for instance, the epiphany involves a young woman's realization of her inability to leave her abusive home life. Within the broader context of Dublin, these epiphanies illustrate the impoverished, hopeless nature of life for most Irish citizens at the turn of the 20th century. As such, through the extended use of epiphany, Joyce executes one of his most successful social critiques.
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