Eveline written by James Joyce is organized in six sequences each presenting a topic and having a different function. In the short story there is a third person omniscient narrator because he knows everything even what crossing Eveline's mind.

The first two sequences introduces two different settings: the fist presents the environment in which the short story takes place, Eveline's room, while in the second one the reader can have a concrete idea about the external setting thanks to the use of language which appeal to the senses (sight, hearing and even smell). The function of the second sequence is to tell the reader information about Eveline's past. The third sequence has the function to describe Eveline's routine life using expressions like ”familiar objects“ or ” … for so many years“. In the following sequence it is presented Eveline's point of view, on one hand she wants to leave her old life but on the other hand she is not sure about what to do. It expresses the nature of the main character, characterized by lots of feelings and her inner conflicts. The last sequence deals with a kind of personal monologue, Eveline is terrified and she asks herself what she will do and what will be the consequences of her choice even if through her movements and her thoughts we can understand her real intentions.

In the short story we can find four different past forms: past simple, past continuous, past perfect and past perfect continuous. Joyce uses simple past in order to expresses an action that took place in the past and has no longer any relationship with the present; he uses the expression ”use to“ for something that happened regularly in the past but no longer happens. There are lots of past perfect ( for example: she had consented, she had known, she had always had...) and past continuous (for example: her time was running out, her father was becoming old...). Each past form present a different part of Eveline's life.

Joyce uses Eveline's point of view in order to present his own opinion. For example in Eveline with the sentence: ”Her head was leaned against the window curtains and in her nostrils was the odour of dusty cretonne“ wants to give his description of Dublin and Dubliners but in particular of the same character.