Chapter 2 — Eveline

'Eveline' by James Joyce tells the story of Eveline Hill, a young Dublin woman who plans to escape her hard life and elope with a sailor named Frank to Buenos Aires. On the evening of their departure she reviews her difficult home circumstances and recalls a deathbed promise to her dying mother. At the quay she cannot bring herself to board the ship, and the story ends with her paralysed, giving Frank no sign of love or farewell.

Eveline Hill is a Dublin woman over nineteen years old who works at the Stores and keeps house for her widowed father. She gives her entire wages — seven shillings — to her father each week. She must also care for two young children left in her charge, see that they attend school and get their meals regularly, and endure the invariable Saturday-night squabble for money. Her father has begun to threaten her with violence, though he had not done so earlier because she was a girl.

Frank is described as "very kind, manly, open-hearted." He is a sailor who lodges on the main road near Eveline's home. He courts her by meeting her outside the Stores every evening, taking her to see The Bohemian Girl, and calling her 'Poppens.' He has sailed through the Straits of Magellan, worked on ships of the Allan Line, and settled in Buenos Aires where he tells Eveline he has a home waiting for her. Her father forbids the relationship after quarrelling with Frank, so they must meet secretly.

Eveline wants to escape a life of drudgery — hard work at the Stores, managing the household, caring for two young children, and handing over her wages every Saturday. Her father has begun to threaten her with violence. In Buenos Aires, she believes she would be married and treated with respect: "People would treat her with respect then. She would not be treated as her mother had been."

On the last night of her mother's illness, Eveline had promised to keep the home together as long as she could. On the evening of her planned departure, a street organ playing outside suddenly reminds her of this promise: "Strange that it should come that very night to remind her of the promise to her mother, her promise to keep the home together as long as she could."

At the North Wall quay, faced with the dark mass of the boat and Frank urging her to come, Eveline is seized by terror. The memory of her mother's pitiful life — ending in "final craziness" and the repeated cry 'Derevaun Seraun!' — overwhelms her. She prays to God to show her her duty, then clutches the iron railing in frenzy, crying 'No! No! No!' Frank rushes across the barrier, but Eveline sets her face to him "passive, like a helpless animal," giving him no sign of love or farewell or recognition.

The story is a study in paralysis — the inability to act even when escape is within reach. The introductory note describes Eveline as one who "has within her reach escape from the drudgery of her life but cannot gather enough courage to seize it." Despite weighing the two sides of her choice, at the decisive moment at the quay she cannot move. Her frozen posture, passive face, and eyes that give Frank no recognition embody the theme.

The story opens and closes with Eveline at the window — a position of watching but not acting. The 'odour of dusty cretonne' signals the stale, trapped atmosphere of home. The gathering dusk represents the evening of departure but also fading hope. At the quay, "all the seas of the world tumbled about her heart" turns the sea — Frank's world of freedom — into something drowning. The iron railing she grips represents her refusal to cross into a new life.

Eveline's father has grown increasingly threatening: "latterly he had begun to threaten her and say what he would do to her only for her dead mother's sake." On Saturday nights he causes invariable squabbles over money and says she squanders it. He had forbidden her to see Frank, saying 'I know these sailor chaps,' and had quarrelled with Frank directly. However, the story also shows occasional kindness — he once read her a ghost story and made her toast when she was ill.

On the night Eveline plans to leave, a street organ plays outside, and she recognises the air. It triggers a vivid memory of her dying mother: the last night of her mother's illness, a melancholy Italian melody playing outside, her father ordering the organ player away. The music and memory awaken the promise she made to her mother to keep the home together, laying its "spell on the very quick of her being" and tipping the balance against her escape.

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