"Eveline":The Attraction of Escape

“She stood up in a sudden impulse of terror. Escape! She must escape! Frank would save her. He would give her life, perhaps love too. But she wanted to live. Why should she be unhappy? She had a right to happiness. Frank would take her in his arms, fold her in his arms. He would save her.”(136-140)
Eveline’s reasoning for leaving her country for a better life is unclear. On one hand she wants to leave because the promise of a house on behalf of Frank, also the escape from the abuse she faces from her father; on the other hand she wants to be happy, unlike her mother was who died living an unhappy live, and have a live that may even have some love involved.
“Escape!”, this seems to be the only answer behind Eveline’s reasoning of leaving with Frank. She wants to escape the monotony of everyday life of with her father. She has seen the life her mother lived and is unhappy with the way she lived her life and she refuses to live that same life. “She had the right to happiness”, everything that her mother endured gives her reason to believe that she does not deserve to live her life under the dictatorship of her father’s will. However, the escape is not limited to her desire to leave her father, she also longs for independence. Her leaving with Frank does not allow for her to be fully independent, but the fact that she will no longer live under the watch of an authoritative figure in her own house seems like a great idea.
The major idea that stands out to me in this excerpt, is the fact that she is leaving with this man she doesn’t even know. It may seem naive on my behalf not to consider the problems she is enduring at home, but the fact that she is leaving with a man to start a completely new life without any security other than his words, which her father claims cannot be taken as the truth because Frank is a sailor and they have a reputation. The fact of the matter is that Eveline does not consider all the possibilities of what her future may entail, she merely hears something good and runs with it. If she had gone through with the plan she would in fact be living a life that her mother voiced to her: “Derevaun Seraun! Derevaun Seraun!”(135)