Angie’s answer to “Based on the last paragraph of the novel, do you think Eilis happily returned to Tony and she reali…” > Likes and Comments

I'm not sure I would call Eilis a "free spirit." In fact, her lack of free spiritedness is my biggest problem with the novel. She was a slave to every whim and thought and action of everyone around her. Marrying Tony, Moving to Brooklyn, Not telling her friends and family she was married, the majority of her conversations and actions with her roommates, all of these things were constantly dictated by her perception of the reaction of other people. She would constantly think "I want this," but do the opposite because of her assumption of how other people might think or perceive her. I think she was actually a bit enslaved to everything around her.