The main figure in this short story is Eveline. She is a 19-year-old girl who lives with her father and two younger siblings. She has also an older brother Harry. Ernest, one of her brothers has died and so has her mother. Eveline works at the Stores and because of her mother's dead she has to work hard to keep the house together.
The period of time in this short story is one evening. Eveline is about to make the biggest decision of her life. She has a special friend Frank, who is a sailor and has a home in Buenos Ayres. He wants to marry Eveline and take her with him to Argentina. Basically the story is about Eveline's thoughts about her past and the future and how these thoughts determine the decision she eventually makes.
The author James Joyce has written Eveline as a third-person narration. This third-person narration is used in such a way that the reader is not particularly aware of the role of the narrator, who remains outside the action of the tale. In such writing as in Eveline the text seems to operate as a simple window on the events of the story. .
This kind of third person narration does not simply observe characters and events from outside. As it is in the case of Eveline, the third person narration works also from inside the consciousness of characters by telling the reader how they think and feel. Eveline is written precisely like this and it is devoted primarily to the inner sensations of the main figure. The story is structured around Eveline's decision between to stay or leave.
Eveline is written in a really impersonal, realistic style. By choosing a very "unmarked" language the author creates a realistic image of what is going on in Eveline's mind. The reader gets a vivid impression of her struggle between duty and a desire for happiness and life.
The theme of this short story is Eveline's battle between staying home or leaving it. The story is written in a way that the reader knows quite early in the beginning what is going to happen in the end.