Eveline (James Joyce)

Eveline reviews the familiar objects at home because she is about to leave her home and is thinking about the life she is giving up. Looking at the objects makes her remember how long she has lived there and how attached she is to the house and its memories.

Eveline was planning to go to Buenos Aires with Frank by the night boat, where he had a home waiting for her.

Frank was the sailor Eveline was going to elope with. He was kind, manly and open-hearted, and he had asked her to go with him to Buenos Aires. Eveline's father quarrelled with him because he disliked the relationship and said, “I know these sailor chaps,” implying that he did not trust Frank.

The organ-player's appearance reminds Eveline of her promise to her mother to keep the home together as long as she could. It also recalls her mother's last night and the sad atmosphere of sacrifice and suffering in the house. So the music becomes a sign of her duty, memory, and guilt.

Eveline liked and loved Frank because he was kind, manly, open-hearted, and promised her escape and a new life. She also liked Harry and Ernest in different ways: Ernest had been her favourite, and she liked Harry too.

She did not like her father and Miss Gavan. Her father frightened her with his violence, threats, and constant quarrels over money. She disliked Miss Gavan because she was sharp and humiliating, always speaking to her harshly in the Stores.

Eveline is torn between two strong emotions. On one side, she feels hope, excitement, and a desire for freedom because Frank can take her to a new life where she may be respected and happy. On the other side, she feels fear, duty, guilt, and sorrow at leaving her home, her dead mother’s promise, her father, and the familiar life she knows. This inner conflict makes her unable to act decisively.

Eveline lets go of the opportunity to escape because her fear and sense of duty become stronger than her wish for freedom. The memory of her mother's suffering, her promise to keep the home together, and her deep emotional paralysis make her unable to choose the unknown future with Frank. At the station she is overwhelmed by terror and cannot move forward.

As departure neared, Eveline shows several signs of indecision: she sits motionless by the window instead of preparing, keeps reviewing the past, feels her heart racing, prays silently for guidance, and is overwhelmed by memories of home and her mother. At the station she answers nothing, clutches the railing, and finally cannot follow Frank.