Eveline is one of the fifteen short stories building up Dubliners, a collection written and revised by James Joyce from 1904 to 1914. The stories are arranged in a definite order (childhood, adolescence, maturity and public life) and Eveline  finds place in the part relating adolescence, being the protagonist a young girl.
Illustrating the conflicting pull that people(especially many women in early twentieth-century Dublin) feel between a life fixed in the past and the possibility of a new life is the principal aim of the story.  
The first brief paragraphs has the function of introducing the main character giving the reader some hints. Eveline is thoughtful because she’s watching out the window and, as she’s tired because she probably is a hard worker.
The second section helps the narrator to present Eveline’s world starting from her childhood: she recalls her past when she played with other children in a field now developed with new homes, when her family was still happy. The character lives in a present made above all of her past: she seems to be deeply attached to her reassuring past.  Two setting are offered: an external space (the world outside) and an inner space (the mental dimension of the girl, the space of consciousness, feeling and emotions).
Toward the end of the sequence the reader is informed that Eveline’s current days are totally different from the time of her infancy. But a new perspective of life is appearing to the girl: she is going to leave her family.
Next paragraph is linked to the previous one because, through the narration of Eveline’s flow of thoughts about the object of her home, it increases the elements for her characterization as dutiful daughter, nanny and emotional adolescent (the exclamation mark at the beginning highlights her feelings) . Following paragraph deepens her life made of a hard job as a shop worker, where she has to support vexation from her employer and client. Through the description of Eveline’s environment, events, feelings the narrator shows also social condition and hopes of young, poor, unmarried girls of the time. Anyway Eveline seems deeply devoted to her actual life and the proposal of her lover Frank to marry him, to go with him to Buenos Aires and leave Dublin is considered carefully by the girl, producing a real emotional crisis. Eveline can’t make up her mind, because she is unable to have a point of view, a judgment. She is a paradigm of the human paralysis, often showed toward  new and unexplored experiences.   
The reader is leaded into her dilemma through the sequencing of the paragraphs that shifts now to the abuses of her father and the quarrels with him for having money to buy food for the family. Through this scene, that probably is the most tragic one, the reader feels pity for the character, hopes she will change her condition and doesn’t share her hesitancy.
The following sequence, narrating the first meeting and the courtship, has the function to introduce the character Eveline’s lover, Frank, and to present her future with him.  
As Eveline reviews her decision to embark on a new life, she holds in her lap two letters, one to her father and one to her brother Harry. But again, in the next part, she  begins to favor the memories of her old family life, when her mother was alive and her brother was living at home, and notes that she did promise her mother to dedicate herself to maintaining the home.
Last paragraph signs a complete change of scene: Eveline is now in the port of Dublin and not more near the window of her home.  On the docks with Frank, away from the familiarity of home, Eveline search for a help in the habit of prayer. Her action is the first sign that she in fact hasn’t made a decision. She will keep her lips moving in the safe practice of repetitive prayer rather than join her love on a new and different life. Though Eveline fears that Frank will drown her in their new life, her trust on everyday rituals is what causes Eveline to stop and not follow Frank.