J. Joyce starts his short
story showing us his novelist's skills in fact in the first sequence
he perfectly makes the reader aware of Eveline's paralysis in the
world and her negative connotation of it; thanks to a suitable
stylistic choice, the introduction of the girl, we can understand
that she feels menace by everything that there isn't in her closed
and claustrophobic world: her house. External world invades the
evening(to invade is usually used to speak about war). Eveline's life
is shabby and projected  in the past( mainly verb tenses are simple
past or past perfect and used to constructions convey further the
idea of habits in the past ). the most important sentence in the
second sequence is "Everything changes" because it's the only
simple present verb, it's a simple sentence (subject + verb) and it
goes straight to the point. But also the life at her home is not so
beautiful, in fact she is constantly under threat by her violent and
often drunk father who makes her everyday life shabbier. The
protagonist is happy and feels at home only among her familiar
objects, when she dusts her house objects "once a week for so many
years", demonstration to the fact of her boring habits routine.
DUST is a very important term because it's a paradigmatic symbol for
her existence , everything that regards her seems to be covered by
dust, her world is grey "yellowing" and "broken". These last
two adjectives are referred to some of her familiar objects like the
harmonium or the priest's photograph, her father's friend. J. Joyce
is a typical modernist novelists: he adopts a 3^rd person
and omniscient narrator to convey the idea that Eveline is a passive
character, someone who hasn't got a point of view of life, someone
who doesn't act. Her house isn't seen like a pleasure but as a
shelter. She doesn't know how the real world is, she knows only that
at Dublin she has got a shelter, some food, a work and her important
familiar objects, so it's possible to understand that "leaving
home" isn't a real choice but only a form of escape; throughout
Eveline's analysis the novelist underlines women's position in
Ireland . In her society she isn't important, she's only a number in
fact she hasn't a personal role, she's an inactive character but she
depends on her petty mentality of gossip.  Reading the question "was
that wise ?" the intelligent reader can understand that Eveline
isn't able to take decisions on her own, this aspect is caused by her
very low self-esteem.  Following sequence deals with her relationship
with Frank: J. Joyce uses the verb to explore to underline that
Eveline doesn't know what she will find in her future with him; she's
happy and she also feels displaced when he threats her well.