.
There used to be a field in which they used to play every evening with other people's children The children of the avenue used to play together in the field - the Devines, the Waters, the Dunns, little Koegh the cripple, she and her brothers and sisters.
Life seemed so much simpler to Eveline back then but "that was a long time ago; she and her brothers sand sisters were all grown up her mother was dead. Tizzie Dunn was dead, too, and the Waters had gone back to England. Everything changes" and thus leads to her desire to obtain that same sense of simplicity in her present life as "now she was going to go away like the others, to leave her home.".
When Eveline is given the chance to break free from her current life, she once again enters a set of games in which she wanders back and forth, like a tennis ball from one side of the court to the other, between her two choices - a new life with Frank or returning to her burdensome life with her family. .
She stood among the swaying crowd in the station at the North Wall Through the wide doors of the sheds she caught a glimpse of the black mass of the boat, lying in besides the quay wall, with illumined portholes The boat blew a long mournful whistle into the mist A bell clanged upon her heart All the seas of the world tumbled about her heart. He was drawing her into them: he would drown her. (Eveline).
In this eventful and vivid depiction of the game that Eveline is finding extremely overwhelming to control, she is seen to be "among the swaying crowd", unable to choose a side. Yet Joyce's selection of imagery seems to suggest and hint towards the path that Eveline would eventually take. Her past life, which is depicted to be a "black mass with illumined portholes", "blew a long mournful whistle into the mist" and hinted for her to give it a second chance. The dramatic imagery of the "bell clang[ing] upon her heart" represents the large impact of her decision.
