Eveline is a short story, written by James Joyce in 1914, and it belong to the Dubliners collection. 

From the title we can understand that the main protagonist is a woman, Eveline. She is about nineteen years old, she falls in love with Frank, a sailor, who promises to take her with him to Buenos Aires. Her mother and her brother Ernest were dead, her second brother was always down somewhere in the country, so she lives with her father.  Eveline has to face the decision of leave or not with Frank. 

There is a short introduction where the narrator introduce the protagonist. In this short macrosequence the character doesn't act. The narrator say that Eveline is looking outside through curtains. The curtains are like a barrier. Eveline see that the evening invades the street and her house. So Eveline perceive that the external world is dangerous, threat: she feels threatened by world around her, powerless, protected only by a dusty cretonne curtain. 

The set is an inner setting, Eveline is in a close space, almost suffocating. The real, living world is outside, everything that's dynamic is outside. One man passes his way home, probably to red houses built on a previous field where Eveline was used to play with other children. That let she think about her past life with her brothers. Joyce refers her memories always by using the “to be used to” form.

“Everything changes" is the most important part of the second sequence. It appear that everything is distant from her. The young woman seems to live in the past, she remind her youngness. 

Eveline returns to contemplate the room, looking at her familiar objects, the photograph hang on the wall. Her house is full of familiar object, these are full of dust. We can understand that her life is repetitive. The writer uses the past perfect: Eveline reflects on choices she has done, and if they are correct. In the description of Eveline's room,  Joyce point out a religion symbol. Joyce underlines that Ireland is suffocated by religion. 

The doubt on her choice introduces the reflection about the consequences: what could be life of people around me, if I were not? 

She concludes that her life is very hard, “but now that she was about to leave it she did not find it a wholly undesirable life”. Eveline would like to go away, but as soon as she decide to go, she goes back, she change her decision. The girl understands that her life is boring. But a boring life is better then the unknown. In this way the protagonist will never act.

Last sequence deals with the departing of two lovers, but she does not feel sure about her choice. “All the seas of the world trumbled about her hear”, so she leaves the idea of a new life with Frank. In the end of this short story Eveline remain alone, she doesn't leave with Frank.