Eveline is a short story from the book of fiction Dubliners by James Joyce. The extract is organized into twelve paragraphs, each with different functions. 

The first paragraph serves to introduce the reader to the setting where the story takes place and it begins to introduce the character of Eveline, who appears immediately to the reader as a girl who does not have a privileged economic situation (it smells dusty cretonne). she is looking the world out the window, and this is the first point where we understand that she’s a  passive girl.
The second paragraph serves to connect the reality that she sees out the window to the past she has lived: telling the landscape that she is observing (through onomatopoeic sounds that help the reader to enter the world of Eveline) suddenly she remembers what was the place of those houses, those sidewalks, long time ago.

The third paragraph is closely linked to the previous one, because trough the trick to remember the past environment, Joyce, through the mind and thoughts of story’s protagonist , begins to tell the Eveline’s childhood herself: the brothers, mother, father; it seemed a happy life.
The fourth paragraph is in contrast with the previous one because it contradicts that happiness previously told: she and her brothers grew up, her mother was dead, her father has become much more bad ... 

In this section is introduced for the first time Eveline’s desire to leave, a desire that can be achieved soon.
The fifth paragraph has the function to underline to the reader the conditions in which she lived, it seems that she is self-convincing that the only solution is to leave and to abandon that place.
Eveline, in the sixth paragraph, begins to wonder what people will think about her when she will be playing with a guy, what will happen next. This step is very important to define the character of Eveline: she does not like the reality she is living, but her choices are influenced by the outside world and this makes her insecure and indecisive.
In the seventh paragraph, the protagonist tries again to convince herself that the choice to leave is an appropriate choice, because she imagines her life once married: relationships with people, the relationship itself with her ​​future husband. These considerations lead her to think back to the past: the violent father, mother, badly treated by her father and even by people.
In the upcoming paragraph, like a flash, Eveline thinks about how she is forced to live: the father would not listen, she had to work to earn money while to look home and family. In conclusion she feels abandoned by everyone and everything.

In ninth paragraph she tries once again to convince herself that the choice to leave is the right thing to do because the guy with whom she would marry is gentle, manly, open-hearted. After that she recounts the first time she saw him.
In the next paragraph it would seem that she has finally decided to flee because she has the right to be happy and the only way to be it is to leave with her lover.
The eleventh paragraph is the moment of departure. Explicitly, for the first time, Joyce writes about the confusion of Eveline, without leaving  no doubt to the reader .
The last paragraph is crucial. It  is described a foggy atmosphere, probably to highlight the vagueness in the mind of the protagonist, her uncertainty, uncertainty that is influenced by the judgments of others and that will bring her not to leave.