One of the symbols James Joyce uses as a resource is the sea. This symbols appears at the end of the story, when Eveline seems not to be able to take a decision. The meaning of the symbol is the unknown. When he writes "all the seas of the world tumbled about her heart", Joyce tells us that Eveline felt the anguish of not knowing what would happen to her if she chose to elope with Frank. The seas of the world represent seven negative feelings, among which it is uncertainty. The author chooses to use the sea as a symbol of desolation because when you set off into it, you never know if you are going to come back. When we think about the sea, we think about a journey, so coming back is implied. Therefore, she may assume that she would have to come back some day and that she was not going to be welcome back in her own land. Leaving her father, although he was abusive, would have been considered a serious offense by Dubliners of the beginning of the twentieth century.
One of the items of imagegy used by Joyce is <em>the odour of dusty cretonne</em>. By this smell, defined as odour with the negative connotation that word has, the author intends to make us feel the same disgust Eveline is feeling at the end of another day in which more of the same old story was what she had to live. The fact that the cretonne is "dusty" gives us the idea of old, dirty and fadded. All these adjectives are the ones that also describe her life.
There is a personification used at the beginning of the story. It is when he writes "... the evening invade de avenue". The author gives the evening the power of a person when he states that it performs the action of invading. In this case, his intention is to show that even an abstract thing is stronger than the weakened and tired Eveline. She is not only tired in the physical sense, but specially in the moral one. The evening approaches and it does not only "invade" the street, but also her existence.
The tone of the story is sad. The only hope Joyce put in Eveline's life is the presence of Frank. Everything about her past and present, apart from her boyfriend, implies desolation, pain and sorrow. Fear also appears as an important element regarding the tone of the story. All her siblings and also herself, were afraid of their father. At the end of the story, Eveline is afraid of the people of the community, that is one of the reasons why she decides to stay. What is almost paradoxical is that she's afraid of Frank, the man who she was sure could save her.
