Eilis does not no da wae
Throughout the novel Brooklyn by Colm Toibin, Eilis, the main character, takes on the opportunity to travel and experience Brooklyn. On this journey, Eilis goes through a series of changes as a result of her internal and external conflicts. These transformations resulted in Eilis’ ability of choice to later be limited due to abuse of that same right. Free will is the ability to choose, the reciprocal being determinism, a set path that one takes inevitably. The concept of free will remains a prominent factor in the novel as the main character, Eilis, goes through the shift between free will to determinism. Eilis’ free will became limited as a result in a change of her values due to challenges and decisions that she had taken upon her arrival to Brooklyn.
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One instance of foreshadowing toys with Eilis’ concept of free will, shown in Eilis’ thought process of boundaries regarding how to act to Jim in the bar: “she felt like she had no choice” (19). “No choice” stands out because it implies that Eilis has no personal rule over herself, therefore lacking free will. Similarly, in the short story Eveline by James Joyce, the younger character Eveline undergoes a similar thought process by saying “It was impossible” (6). The thought of something being “impossible” relates to having “no choice” since to a certain extent, choice has an effect on whether or not something is impossible. The polar opposites of free will and determinism aren’t initially observed until later into the book, however, Eilis experiences minor shifts between these two states to an extent where it is a spectrum rather than binary